Pre-earnings brief: the upcoming report date, the quarterly guidance in the company's latest earnings release, and the same quarter a year earlier
Answers what is already on record heading into a company's next earnings report. It reads the earnings calendar for the upcoming report date, the quarterly guidance the company gave in its latest earnings release filed with the SEC, each with its period as the release states it, and the same quarter a year earlier from the company's filed statements. It records what the company itself said to expect before the report, so the result can later be compared with that reference point. Wall Street consensus estimates are not included. It describes the event and the company's own figures, and it is not an assessment of the coming results.
A pre-earnings brief - and an entry about whose expectations a reference point should be.
WHAT IT READS. The earnings calendar for the upcoming report date; the company's latest earnings release, the exhibit it files with the SEC on Form 8-K when it reports, for the quarterly guidance it gave, each figure with its period as the release states it; and the company's filed statements for the same quarter a year earlier.
WHY THE COMPANY'S OWN GUIDANCE. Guidance is management's forecast, given by the people with the most information about the business. When a company guides a quarter, that figure is the first expectation on record for it, and analysts' estimates are usually built around it. Recording it before the report is what makes the comparison possible afterwards: when the result arrives, the only way to know whether it was good is to know what was expected, and that cannot be reconstructed later if it was never written down.
WHAT GUIDANCE IS NOT. It is not a neutral forecast. Companies have reasons to guide conservatively, so a result above guidance is common and is not by itself a surprise. And it is not the market's expectation: what moves a price at a report is the result against what investors expected at that moment, which can sit above or below the company's own range. This brief does not include Wall Street consensus estimates.
NOT EVERY COMPANY GUIDES. Many give no quarterly guidance, some guide only the full year, and some give guidance only on the conference call or in slides that are not filed. The brief says which: quarterly guidance, guidance for other periods only, or none stated in the release. Which quarter the coming report covers depends on the company's fiscal calendar, so each figure keeps the period the company gave it.
THE YEAR-AGO QUARTER is the base most growth figures are quoted against, and it is read from the company's filed statements, not from a summary of them.
THE DATE IS LESS CERTAIN THAN IT LOOKS. Earnings dates are often estimated before a company confirms them, and an unconfirmed date can move by days.
WHAT THIS DELIBERATELY DOES NOT DO: it describes the event and the company's own figures, and it makes no statement about whether the coming results will meet them. Whether guidance has been moving is the guidance revision tracker; how past results compared with expectations is the earnings surprise record.
Published reports are readable without an account. The newest is Ether (ETH) and XRP extend a month-long slide as Bitcoin falls below $75,000: trend, momentum and news (Nov 9, 2026). Create an account to run research on the stocks and crypto you choose.