Goldman Sachs announced this week that earnings reports happen on a schedule. The firm called this "quality buying opportunities." Their research team apparently owns a calendar now.
Here's what they're saying: buy stocks before the companies tell you whether they made money. Revolutionary. Next they'll suggest selling after bad news comes out. They'll call it "tactical repositioning" and charge two percent for the insight.
The whole pitch rests on Goldman knowing something you don't about these unnamed companies. They won't tell you which stocks. They won't tell you which earnings. They just want you to know they see opportunities. Must've taken the entire analyst pool to crack that code. Companies report earnings every quarter. Someone get these guys a Nobel. Wait, I can't say that.
Retail traders will read this headline and think they've been handed the secret. They'll buy three shares of whatever Reddit tells them Goldman meant. Then earnings miss. Then Goldman's prop desk—sorry, "market making division"—sells them the shares they bought last month. Circle of life.
The firm didn't specify if these quality opportunities are quality because the stocks will go up or quality because Goldman needs bag holders. Probably both. That's efficient market theory. Half the people are right. The other half subscribe to Goldman's research.
The technical setup here is clean though. Goldman says buy. You buy. Stock goes down. Goldman says they never specified when it would work. You're left holding shares in a company that makes thermostats or cloud HR software or some other product nobody can explain at Thanksgiving. Your uncle asks how your portfolio is doing. You tell him Goldman had conviction. He changes the subject.
The real alpha move is selling immediately after Goldman publishes the buy rating, but seventeen milliseconds is tough to beat when you're trading on your phone between emails.
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