For quarterly earnings, been checking and refreshing EDGAR for 10Q filings and the company IR pages, but stocks always move and business wires report before I can see them.
So my question is simply where do company earnings first hit? And if you or your NLP algo is trading on earnings, where exactly do you go for the raw primary filings?
The company's IR pages is where it comes out first. Some company's simultaneously file a document that shows up on EDGAR, but that (initial) document usually only refers the reader right back to the filing on the IR pages.
Finding it fast on the IR pages can be tricky, because usually there are multiple links on the IR homepage. What I do is I figure out which link it will be filed under ahead of time by looking at the way they have it set up. Some use "recent events", some use "latest news", etc. Usually the link that says "SEC Filings" is worthless as it just sends you to EDGAR which results in a round trip as I mentioned above. So if I were you I'd try to figure it out beforehand. And you can always jot down a note after the fact so the when the next quarter rolls around, you can just look at your notes.
One thing I do, and I don't mind sharing it here, but it is an edge, is using the browser's "find in this page" function. Now I do this manually, but you could probably code it if you know what you're doing. When you finally land on the press release, the things can be 20 pages long depending on the company. Knowing what the Wall Street analysts are looking for in the report ahead of time is key. Say it's subscriber growth, or same store sales, or margins, qoq or yoy revenue growth... whatever. All that stuff can be hard to find, especially when you have to sort between pages and pages of gaap and non-gaap data. Using the browser's "search in this page" nails it. You can have your answer in seconds. One of my favorite words to use on any report right off the bat is "diluted". That'll get you right to the EPS without having to scroll forever. Another favorite is "outlook" or guidance" . Sure you can find that easy enough, but when seconds matter... scrolling will kill ya.
Now on a company like any of the biggies, NFLX, NVDA, AMZN, etc etc... you're never gonna beat the pro's on the instantaneous big move, but where it does work extremely well, is with slightly off the radar companies that the whales don't really care about. I can't tell you how many times I have watched a stock not move for 5 minutes or so after the release when I have caught a blatant red flag in under a minute after it first came out. For me, I usually look for the reasons to hit the short side, because even with the best of reports, a company can tank the next day. We've all seen it. But bad things on a report, if you know what the analysts are going to be looking for... and they're bad enough... jump in. And even if you don't get to the party first in those first few minutes and the stock is already down a little, oftentimes it's far from being too early to jump in.
The best situation is when the headlines read "beat eps" or "beat revenue" and retail players jump on it long and it spikes way up, then you hit the short side.
In the end, it's all about doing your homework in advance, and also referring to notes you took from previous quarters. I could elaborate more, but hopefully you get the idea and this helps some.
~vz
, but I don't think it's that many people that would be interested in the info.