Selling Puts and the Earnings Calendar
(Part 3 of 3)

I wanted to wrap up our three part series on Selling Puts and the Earnings Calendar with one quick, weird, but very important tip - always double check an earnings release date directly on the company's website.

Before I get into why that's necessary, let's review what we've covered so far in this series:

>> In Selling Puts Into Earnings, I explained why I rarely set up a new trade with an expiration cycle that includes an earnings release.

Yes, you can theoretically make a lot more money selling options during an earnings release because the premium levels are so much higher.

But it's riskier to do so.

And to really drive that point home, I shared a very scary chart (involving TEVA) to illustrate the kind of carnage that's possible when Mr. Market doesn't like what he hears on an earnings conference call.

>> In How to Use Earnings to Manage and Repair a Short Put Trade, we looked at what happens if we're already in a trade and something goes wrong and smarmy Mr. Market is patting himself on the back.

Then it's a different story.

The elevated premium levels priced into future option expiration cycles with earnings releases is often something we can then use against Mr. Market to get a little extra boost in our renegotiation efforts.

Verify the Earnings Release Date on the Company Website!

This is a weird tip and not something you would think you need to worry about, but don't assume that the earnings release date on a financial website - or even your own broker's trading platform - has the correct date of a company's upcoming earnings release.

Sure, most of the time, that info is going to be right.

But I've also seen incorrect dates posted enough of the time that it's something that I feel is important to bring some attention to.

Example of Wrong Earnings Release Dates on Financial Websites

Case in point - HPE (Hewlett-Packard Enterprises) reporting their quarterly results after the market closed on Tuesday, November 21, 2017.

But - as late as the day before - both Yahoo Finance and TDAmeritrade showed the earnings release to be scheduled for after hours on Monday.

I didn't do a full investigation here so I have no idea what other sites and brokers were reporting, but I've also seen incorrect earnings dates included on Finviz.com

(I love all three of these sites so I'm not trying to disparage them, but this is something you need to be aware of when doing your due diligence on a trade.)

Yes, it's a bit of a pain and takes a few extra minutes to go to a company's website, track down the investor relations section, then find where they've hidden the link to upcoming announcements (or wherever they post the information on the next quarterly release), and 9 times out of 10 it won't be necessary . . .

But if there IS a discrepancy - and the earnings release date IS something you factor in to your trades - you're definitely going to want to make sure you've got the correct info.

It may not be quite as critical as getting the date, time, and location right for a wedding (especially if you have any kind of role in it).

But since there's money involved, it's a close second.

Selling Puts (and Covered Calls) and Earnings Season Recap

Finally, just to wrap up our three part series on option trading and the earnings calendar, while my philosophy obviously isn't the only viable approach, here's how I do it:

• I avoid initiating any new option trades for expiration dates that include an earnings release
• If I'm already in a trade and I'm managing or repairing it over a longer time period, I will then use the earnings calendar to my advantage
• Finally, if it's going to be a factor in a decision, I'll always double check the earnings release date and verify it directly in the Investor Relations section of a company's website.

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