NASDAQ earnings season: What Indian investors should watch
Every quarter, the biggest technology companies in the world report their financial results. This period, known as the NASDAQ earnings season, moves billions of dollars in market value within hours. For Indian investors holding US stocks, the coming weeks demand close attention and careful preparation.
The Q4 2025 season, running through January and February 2026, has already delivered dramatic surprises. Apple posted record revenue of $143.8 billion while Meta surged 10% after hours on strong results. Yet Microsoft dropped 7%, Alphabet fell 5%, and Amazon plunged 8% despite beating estimates. The difference between winners and losers came down to one thing: what these companies said about the future.
Here is what you need to know to navigate earnings season effectively from India.
Earnings calendar tracking: Know the dates before they move markets
The earnings season calendar follows a predictable rhythm every quarter. Major NASDAQ companies report results in a concentrated three-week window. For Q4 2025, Netflix kicked things off on January 20, followed by Tesla, Microsoft, and Meta on January 28. Apple reported on January 29, Alphabet on February 4, and Amazon on February 5. NVIDIA closes the season on February 25.
Track these dates using free tools like Nasdaq.com's earnings calendar or Yahoo Finance's earnings schedule. Set reminders at least two weeks before each report date. Most mega-cap companies announce results after the market closes at 4:00 PM Eastern Time. That translates to 2:30 AM IST duringthe winter months. Some companies report before the market opens, typically between 4:30 and 7:00 PM IST.
Indian investors should note that most price action happens during after-hours and pre-market sessions. Platforms offering extended-hours trading give you a meaningful edge during earnings season. If you plan to invest in NASDAQ from India, choose a broker that supports these sessions.
Key metrics to watch: Look beyond the headline numbers
Wall Street tracks dozens of data points in every earnings report. You do not need all of them. Focus on five key metrics that earnings reports reveal actually drive stock prices.
Revenue growth rate tells you whether a company is gaining or losing market share. Compare it to analyst estimates and the prior quarter. A company growing revenue at 20% that suddenly slows to 12% will face selling pressure even if it beats estimates.
Earnings per share measure profitability on a per-share basis. The "beat or miss" against analyst consensus drives the immediate after-hours reaction. This season, the S&P 500 EPS beat rate stood at roughly 76%, slightly below the five-year average of 78%.
Operating margins reveal whether a company converts revenue into profit efficiently. Expanding margins signal pricing power and cost control. Shrinking margins raise concerns about competition or rising expenses.
Free cash flow is the cash a business generates after capital expenditures. Companies burning cash despite reporting accounting profits often face trouble ahead. Amazon's heavy capital expenditure plans sent its stock down even though revenue beat estimates.
User or subscriber growth matters especially for platform companies like Meta, Netflix, and Alphabet. Slowing growth in core metrics can overshadow strong financial results and trigger sharp sell-offs.
Pre-earnings strategies: Position yourself before the announcement
A sound pre-earnings strategy starts weeks before the report date, not the day before. Here are approaches that work for retail investors.
Research analyst expectations by reading consensus estimates on platforms like Yahoo Finance or Seeking Alpha. Understand what the market already prices in. A stock trading at 40 times forward earnings has high expectations baked into its price. Beating estimates by a small margin will not be enough.
Size your positions conservatively. Professional traders reduce position sizes by half around earnings events. Keep your total earnings-related exposure below 15% of your portfolio value. This limits damage from surprises.
Avoid buying options right before earnings announcements. Implied volatility peaks just before the report, making options expensive. Data from Interactive Brokers shows that long straddle trades on Microsoft around earnings had a win rate of just 33%. The volatility crush after the announcement destroys option value even when the stock moves as expected.
If you want to trade the volatility pattern, buy positions two to three weeks before the report when implied volatility is still low. Sell them into the pre-earnings run-up before the actual announcement. This captures the predictable rise in option premiums without exposing you to the binary outcome.
Post-earnings volatility: Expect big moves and prepare for them
Post-earnings volatility for NASDAQ mega-caps typically ranges from 3% to 10% in a single session. This season produced even larger swings. Meta moved 10% higher, Amazon dropped 8%, and AMD fell 8% despite beating estimates on both revenue and earnings.
The first reaction is often misleading. Stocks frequently gap in one direction after hours and reverse during the next regular session. Patient investors who wait for the dust to settle usually find better entry points. Do not chase the initial move.
A well-documented pattern known as post-earnings announcement drift shows that stocks continue to move in the surprise direction for weeks. Academic research found this effect to be strongest in small-cap, low-coverage stocks, where information spreads slowly. For prominent NASDAQ names, the initial reaction captures most of the information quickly.
Indian investors face an additional timing challenge. After-hours announcements land between 2:30 and 6:30 AM IST. The volatile first reaction often moderates by the time regular trading opens at 8:00 PM IST. This delay works in your favour if you use it to study the full earnings report, read the conference call transcript, and make informed decisions rather than emotional ones.
Understanding NASDAQ trading hours in IST helps you plan when to place your orders around these events.
Guidance importance: Why the future matters more than the past
Forward guidance is the most critical element of any earnings report. It refers to management's outlook for revenue, earnings, and spending in upcoming quarters. Stock prices reflect future expectations, so last quarter's results are already old news.
This season offered clear examples of guidance-driven price movements. Amazon reported revenue of $213.4 billion, beating estimates comfortably. But management guided Q1 operating income between $16.5 and $21.5 billion, well below Wall Street's $22.2 billion estimate. The stock dropped 8% on that guidance, not the results.
Meta delivered the opposite outcome. Its Q1 2026 revenue guidance of $53.5 to $56.5 billion came in well above the $51.4 billion consensus. The stock surged 10% because the future looked better than expected, even though Meta also announced $115 to $135 billion in AI capital spending for 2026.
Research shows that management teams set guidance ranges with a built-in cushion. They are nearly nine times more likely to set ranges where their internal forecast sits above the midpoint. Yet actual earnings fall within the initial guidance range only 31% of the time. When a company raises guidance, it triggers a chain reaction of analyst upgrades, higher price targets, and buying pressure.
Only about 19% of S&P 500 companies now provide quarterly earnings guidance, down from 50% in 2004. Companies that offer it send strong signals about their confidence.
Historical patterns: What past seasons tell us about the present
Earnings seasons follow repeating patterns that informed investors can use to their advantage. The beat rate for S&P 500 companies has averaged 78% over the past five years. Companies that beat estimates by large margins tend to outperform in the following quarter. Companies that miss tend to underperform for weeks.
The AI spending theme dominating this season has historical parallels. Big Tech collectively committed approximately $650 billion in 2026 capital expenditure, most of it directed toward AI infrastructure. Amazon leads with roughly $200 billion, followed by Alphabet at $175 to $185 billion, Meta at $115 to $135 billion, and Microsoft at about $105 billion.
Markets initially punish heavy spenders because returns take time to materialise. The same pattern played out during the cloud computing build-out from 2014 to 2018. Amazon Web Services spent aggressively while profits lagged, and the stock faced periodic sell-offs. Investors who held through those periods earned extraordinary returns as cloud revenue ramped.
The Magnificent Seven stocks now represent about 34% of the S&P 500. Their earnings growth advantage is narrowing, with aggregate growth around 20% versus 4% for the remaining 493 companies. Analysts expect this gap to narrow through 2026, potentially shifting leadership toward broader market participation.
Trading around earnings: Practical rules for Indian investors
Trading around earnings requires discipline, not prediction. Follow these rules to protect your capital while capturing opportunities.
First, never risk more than 2% of your portfolio on any single earnings trade. A stock dropping 10% on a position that is 20% of your portfolio means a 2% portfolio loss. Size accordingly.
Second, use limit orders rather than market orders during volatile sessions. Spreads widen dramatically during after-hours trading and the first 30 minutes of the next session. A limit order protects you from paying an inflated price.
Third, separate your long-term holdings from your trading positions. If you own Apple because you believe in its five-year growth story, do not sell it because of one quarterly report. Earnings volatility creates noise that long-term investors should ignore.
Fourth, watch the earnings season calendar for clustering effects. When multiple major companies report in the same week, sector-wide moves amplify individual stock reactions. Microsoft's weak Azure commentary dragged cloud stocks lower, creating buying opportunities in names that had not yet reported.
Fifth, factor in currency movements. The Indian rupee fluctuates against the US dollar, and sharp moves during earnings season can add or subtract returns for Indian investors. A 1% rupee depreciation adds roughly 1% to your dollar-denominated returns.
NVIDIA's February 25 report will cap this earnings season. The market expects revenue near $65 billion and will focus intensely on Blackwell chip demand and customer return-on-investment data. How NVIDIA guides for the rest of 2026 will likely set the tone for AI stocks through mid-year.
Disclaimer: The views and recommendations made above are those of individual analysts or brokerage companies, and not of Winvesta. We advise investors to check with certified experts before making any investment decisions.
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Table of Contents
Every quarter, the biggest technology companies in the world report their financial results. This period, known as the NASDAQ earnings season, moves billions of dollars in market value within hours. For Indian investors holding US stocks, the coming weeks demand close attention and careful preparation.
The Q4 2025 season, running through January and February 2026, has already delivered dramatic surprises. Apple posted record revenue of $143.8 billion while Meta surged 10% after hours on strong results. Yet Microsoft dropped 7%, Alphabet fell 5%, and Amazon plunged 8% despite beating estimates. The difference between winners and losers came down to one thing: what these companies said about the future.
Here is what you need to know to navigate earnings season effectively from India.
Earnings calendar tracking: Know the dates before they move markets
The earnings season calendar follows a predictable rhythm every quarter. Major NASDAQ companies report results in a concentrated three-week window. For Q4 2025, Netflix kicked things off on January 20, followed by Tesla, Microsoft, and Meta on January 28. Apple reported on January 29, Alphabet on February 4, and Amazon on February 5. NVIDIA closes the season on February 25.
Track these dates using free tools like Nasdaq.com's earnings calendar or Yahoo Finance's earnings schedule. Set reminders at least two weeks before each report date. Most mega-cap companies announce results after the market closes at 4:00 PM Eastern Time. That translates to 2:30 AM IST duringthe winter months. Some companies report before the market opens, typically between 4:30 and 7:00 PM IST.
Indian investors should note that most price action happens during after-hours and pre-market sessions. Platforms offering extended-hours trading give you a meaningful edge during earnings season. If you plan to invest in NASDAQ from India, choose a broker that supports these sessions.
Key metrics to watch: Look beyond the headline numbers
Wall Street tracks dozens of data points in every earnings report. You do not need all of them. Focus on five key metrics that earnings reports reveal actually drive stock prices.
Revenue growth rate tells you whether a company is gaining or losing market share. Compare it to analyst estimates and the prior quarter. A company growing revenue at 20% that suddenly slows to 12% will face selling pressure even if it beats estimates.
Earnings per share measure profitability on a per-share basis. The "beat or miss" against analyst consensus drives the immediate after-hours reaction. This season, the S&P 500 EPS beat rate stood at roughly 76%, slightly below the five-year average of 78%.
Operating margins reveal whether a company converts revenue into profit efficiently. Expanding margins signal pricing power and cost control. Shrinking margins raise concerns about competition or rising expenses.
Free cash flow is the cash a business generates after capital expenditures. Companies burning cash despite reporting accounting profits often face trouble ahead. Amazon's heavy capital expenditure plans sent its stock down even though revenue beat estimates.
User or subscriber growth matters especially for platform companies like Meta, Netflix, and Alphabet. Slowing growth in core metrics can overshadow strong financial results and trigger sharp sell-offs.
Pre-earnings strategies: Position yourself before the announcement
A sound pre-earnings strategy starts weeks before the report date, not the day before. Here are approaches that work for retail investors.
Research analyst expectations by reading consensus estimates on platforms like Yahoo Finance or Seeking Alpha. Understand what the market already prices in. A stock trading at 40 times forward earnings has high expectations baked into its price. Beating estimates by a small margin will not be enough.
Size your positions conservatively. Professional traders reduce position sizes by half around earnings events. Keep your total earnings-related exposure below 15% of your portfolio value. This limits damage from surprises.
Avoid buying options right before earnings announcements. Implied volatility peaks just before the report, making options expensive. Data from Interactive Brokers shows that long straddle trades on Microsoft around earnings had a win rate of just 33%. The volatility crush after the announcement destroys option value even when the stock moves as expected.
If you want to trade the volatility pattern, buy positions two to three weeks before the report when implied volatility is still low. Sell them into the pre-earnings run-up before the actual announcement. This captures the predictable rise in option premiums without exposing you to the binary outcome.
Post-earnings volatility: Expect big moves and prepare for them
Post-earnings volatility for NASDAQ mega-caps typically ranges from 3% to 10% in a single session. This season produced even larger swings. Meta moved 10% higher, Amazon dropped 8%, and AMD fell 8% despite beating estimates on both revenue and earnings.
The first reaction is often misleading. Stocks frequently gap in one direction after hours and reverse during the next regular session. Patient investors who wait for the dust to settle usually find better entry points. Do not chase the initial move.
A well-documented pattern known as post-earnings announcement drift shows that stocks continue to move in the surprise direction for weeks. Academic research found this effect to be strongest in small-cap, low-coverage stocks, where information spreads slowly. For prominent NASDAQ names, the initial reaction captures most of the information quickly.
Indian investors face an additional timing challenge. After-hours announcements land between 2:30 and 6:30 AM IST. The volatile first reaction often moderates by the time regular trading opens at 8:00 PM IST. This delay works in your favour if you use it to study the full earnings report, read the conference call transcript, and make informed decisions rather than emotional ones.
Understanding NASDAQ trading hours in IST helps you plan when to place your orders around these events.
Guidance importance: Why the future matters more than the past
Forward guidance is the most critical element of any earnings report. It refers to management's outlook for revenue, earnings, and spending in upcoming quarters. Stock prices reflect future expectations, so last quarter's results are already old news.
This season offered clear examples of guidance-driven price movements. Amazon reported revenue of $213.4 billion, beating estimates comfortably. But management guided Q1 operating income between $16.5 and $21.5 billion, well below Wall Street's $22.2 billion estimate. The stock dropped 8% on that guidance, not the results.
Meta delivered the opposite outcome. Its Q1 2026 revenue guidance of $53.5 to $56.5 billion came in well above the $51.4 billion consensus. The stock surged 10% because the future looked better than expected, even though Meta also announced $115 to $135 billion in AI capital spending for 2026.
Research shows that management teams set guidance ranges with a built-in cushion. They are nearly nine times more likely to set ranges where their internal forecast sits above the midpoint. Yet actual earnings fall within the initial guidance range only 31% of the time. When a company raises guidance, it triggers a chain reaction of analyst upgrades, higher price targets, and buying pressure.
Only about 19% of S&P 500 companies now provide quarterly earnings guidance, down from 50% in 2004. Companies that offer it send strong signals about their confidence.
Historical patterns: What past seasons tell us about the present
Earnings seasons follow repeating patterns that informed investors can use to their advantage. The beat rate for S&P 500 companies has averaged 78% over the past five years. Companies that beat estimates by large margins tend to outperform in the following quarter. Companies that miss tend to underperform for weeks.
The AI spending theme dominating this season has historical parallels. Big Tech collectively committed approximately $650 billion in 2026 capital expenditure, most of it directed toward AI infrastructure. Amazon leads with roughly $200 billion, followed by Alphabet at $175 to $185 billion, Meta at $115 to $135 billion, and Microsoft at about $105 billion.
Markets initially punish heavy spenders because returns take time to materialise. The same pattern played out during the cloud computing build-out from 2014 to 2018. Amazon Web Services spent aggressively while profits lagged, and the stock faced periodic sell-offs. Investors who held through those periods earned extraordinary returns as cloud revenue ramped.
The Magnificent Seven stocks now represent about 34% of the S&P 500. Their earnings growth advantage is narrowing, with aggregate growth around 20% versus 4% for the remaining 493 companies. Analysts expect this gap to narrow through 2026, potentially shifting leadership toward broader market participation.
Trading around earnings: Practical rules for Indian investors
Trading around earnings requires discipline, not prediction. Follow these rules to protect your capital while capturing opportunities.
First, never risk more than 2% of your portfolio on any single earnings trade. A stock dropping 10% on a position that is 20% of your portfolio means a 2% portfolio loss. Size accordingly.
Second, use limit orders rather than market orders during volatile sessions. Spreads widen dramatically during after-hours trading and the first 30 minutes of the next session. A limit order protects you from paying an inflated price.
Third, separate your long-term holdings from your trading positions. If you own Apple because you believe in its five-year growth story, do not sell it because of one quarterly report. Earnings volatility creates noise that long-term investors should ignore.
Fourth, watch the earnings season calendar for clustering effects. When multiple major companies report in the same week, sector-wide moves amplify individual stock reactions. Microsoft's weak Azure commentary dragged cloud stocks lower, creating buying opportunities in names that had not yet reported.
Fifth, factor in currency movements. The Indian rupee fluctuates against the US dollar, and sharp moves during earnings season can add or subtract returns for Indian investors. A 1% rupee depreciation adds roughly 1% to your dollar-denominated returns.
NVIDIA's February 25 report will cap this earnings season. The market expects revenue near $65 billion and will focus intensely on Blackwell chip demand and customer return-on-investment data. How NVIDIA guides for the rest of 2026 will likely set the tone for AI stocks through mid-year.
Disclaimer: The views and recommendations made above are those of individual analysts or brokerage companies, and not of Winvesta. We advise investors to check with certified experts before making any investment decisions.
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Invest in 11,000+ US stocks & ETFs
