Apple (AAPL) Earnings Report: Date & Expectations

Earnings Spotlight - Apple (AAPL)

Apple (AAPL) will release its much anticipated Q1 earnings announcement next week.

Apple had a sluggish start in 2024, down 8% and lagging behind what has been an otherwise strong quarter for major tech stocks. Investors will pay close attention to the company’s performance and future guidance when they announce results after the bell next Thursday, May 2nd.

Let’s take a closer at AAPL next earnings report using Option Alpha’s earnings tool that shows analyst’s expectations, stats covering the stock’s historical earnings results, the average move up or down for the stock after a beat or miss (1 day and 5 days after), and many other useful stats to help us make more informed trading decisions across earnings announcements.

AAPL Q1 earnings forecast

Here is a breakdown of Apple’s earnings forecast for their first earnings report of the year on Thursday, May 2nd, after the market closes.

The consensus estimate for Apple earnings is $1.40 EPS on $84.12B revenue. Analysts project Apple to beat estimates by 12.74%.

AAPL earnings expectations

• Consensus estimate for AAPL earnings is $1.40 per share on $84.12B revenue
• Analysts project that AAPL will beat estimates by 12.74%

AAPL expected move

AAPL’s expected move after earnings is +/- 5.23%. Below, we’ll compare this expectation with their historical price movement after earnings.

AAPL 5-year historical stats

AAPL has a very strong record of beating EPS and revenue estimates.

In the last five years, Apple has beat EPS estimates 19 out of 20  times and beat revenue projections 18 times. AAPL beat estimates for both EPS and revenue in 18 earnings reports and missed on both only once.

AAPL earnings data

• AAPL beat earnings per share (EPS) estimates 95% of the time in the past five years.
• AAPL beat revenue estimates 90% of the time in the past five years.
• AAPL beat both EPS and revenue estimates 90% of the time and missed on both 5% of the time in the past five years.

AAPL has beat projections in four straight earnings reports, bettering analyst estimates in all but one announcement in 2023. Their only miss since 2019 was in February of last year. They missed by 3%, yet the stock price still increased in the following days.

For their last earnings report on February 1st,  2024, AAPL reported an EPS of $2.18 on revenue of $ 119.58 billion, beating estimates by 3.85%.

AAPL performance post-earnings

Although they consistently outperform analysts' EPS and revenue expectations the last five years, Apple stock has not always seen positive returns following earnings.

AAPL stock price has a one-day win rate of 50%, including three straight quarters of a decline, and a slightly better five-day win rate of 65%, which has been inconsistent in recent quarters. Outlier moves tend to be to the upside, as seen in the charts below.

View AAPL earnings projections and historical stats for the past 5 years in Option Alpha

AAPL earnings option trade idea

Let's take a closer look at an iron condor trade using Apple's average move post-earnings.

The iron condor expires Friday May 3rd, and the position's short strikes are wider than AAPL's average move one day after earnings, meaning Apple would need to make an above-average move to challenge the position's short legs.

_{*Trade ideas are example only and not financial advice or strategy recommendation.}

AAPL earnings: Stock price expected move vs. actual move

AAPL expected move is +/- 5.23%.

The next expiration date following Apple earnings is Friday, May 3rd, one day after AAPL reports.

We can see in the images above that Apple’s average move one day after earnings is +/- 4.20%, less than what is currently implied by the market. The average move five days after earnings is +/- 5.77%.

The expected move is the amount that a stock is expected to move up or down from its current price, as derived from current options prices. The expected move is calculated using the implied volatility of the at-the-money call and put options in the expiration immediately following the earnings report.

Earnings implied volatility & options pricing

Implied volatility (IV) is the expected price movement in a security for a specific forward-looking period of time.

As implied volatility increases, options prices increase because the expected price range of the underlying security increases.

Buyers of options benefit from increasing implied volatility, while options sellers benefit from decreasing IV.

Want to know how to take advantage of earnings? See the Three Best Options Strategies for Earnings here.

Earnings IV crush

Implied volatility typically rises before earnings and the contracts expiring shortly after the announcement become more expensive. Immediately following the earnings report, options prices decline as volatility drops.

This is known as IV crush.

The chart below highlights an example of IV crush after previous AAPL earnings. Despite any significant price change, implied volatility dropped after each earnings announcement.

More stats from Option Alpha’s earnings tool

Here’s a look at some key metrics using the May 3rd expiration date for AAPL options. This data can help investors when considering trades after earnings.

Max Pain

Max pain is the strike price at which the maximum number of options would expire worthless for a given expiration. This price has the most open call and put option contracts for a symbol’s expiration date, and, theoretically, should the stock close at this price on expiration, most option traders would lose money. This is why it’s often referred to as the “max pain” in options trading.

AAPL's max pain for the May 3rd expiration immediately following earnings is the 170 strike price.

Historical vs Implied Probability of Expiring ITM

This chart is a visual representation of historical volatility (HV) vs implied volatility (IV).

It shows the probability of expiring in-the-money (ITM) using the stock’s HV and then calculates the probability of the stock’s price at expiration using IV.

Implied Volatility Skew

Skew highlights the implied volatility of different strike prices. Generally, OTM and ITM options exhibit higher IV. 

We can see IV skew in these AAPL option contracts, especially in the OTM options, likely because traders are placing bets that Apple will make a big move the day after earnings are released.