Just who are these people who trade stocks in the after-hours session immediately after an earnings report is released? I ask myself that question every time I see action like what happened in Google (GOOG) last night. You can see the wild ride it had as it spiked down under 300 then up to 320 in the moments after the report was released. Then as the conference call began things really got wild as the stock slid to 280. This morning after people have had a chance to digest everything that was said yesterday the stock is back above 300 and ‘only’ down 3%. You’ve got to be Quick Draw McGraw, and extremely accurate, to make money consistently in an environment like that. That’s way too much drama & excitement for me. I’ll gladly wait until the regular trading session and after the conference call to trade on earnings.
Here’s a 5-minute chart of the extended hours action in GOOG:
