Earnings Reaction Patterns: A 17-Year Analysis of How Stocks Behave After SEC Filings (2026)
By Chad Hartman
Published May 20, 2026 · Last updated May 20, 2026
After a company files its 10-K or 10-Q with the SEC, what happens to the stock? Not the day-of earnings reaction — every financial website tracks that. The question is what happens over the following one, two, three, six, and twelve months. And the more important question: does the quality of the filing — the revenue growth, the margin trajectory, the earnings trend — predict where the stock goes next?
We analyzed 578 filings across 7 companies — Apple, Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase, Johnson & Johnson, Caterpillar, UnitedHealth Group, and Deckers Outdoor — spanning 17 years of post-filing return data and fundamental financial data from GeminIQ's Earnings Market Reaction Heatmap and XBRL-tagged financial statements.
The headline finding: companies that filed declining revenue produced a median 12-month return of +26.7%. Companies that filed revenue growth above 5% produced a median of +14.4%. The relationship between filing quality and subsequent returns is not what most investors expect — and understanding why is the key to using post-filing data correctly.
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The Aggregate Pattern: Time Favors Holders
Across all 116 annual 10-K filings in our dataset, the probability of positive returns increases monotonically with time:
| Time After Filing | % Positive | Median Return |
|---|---|---|
| 1 month | 53% | +0.6% |
| 3 months | 64% | +3.5% |
| 6 months | 70% | +7.6% |
| 12 months | 75% | +14.9% |
At the one-month mark, annual filings are essentially a coin flip — 53% positive. By twelve months, three out of four filings are followed by positive returns, with a median gain of +14.9% and a mean of +18.7%.
But this aggregate conceals the most interesting finding in the data — which becomes visible only when you layer the fundamentals.
The Counterintuitive Finding: Weak Filings, Strong Returns
The natural assumption is that companies filing strong earnings should produce better subsequent stock returns than companies filing weak earnings. The data shows the opposite.
Revenue Growth vs. 12-Month Return
| Revenue Growth at Filing | Filings | Median 12M | Mean 12M | % Positive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue declined | 18 | +26.7% | +29.9% | 83% |
| Revenue grew >5% | 55 | +14.4% | +17.4% | 82% |
Companies that filed declining revenue generated nearly double the median 12-month return of companies that filed solid revenue growth. And the positive hit rate was virtually identical — 83% vs. 82%.
"Good" vs. "Bad" Earnings
Defining "good" as both revenue growth and EPS growth positive, and "bad" as either declining:
| Earnings Quality | Filings | Median 12M | Mean 12M | % Positive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Good (rev + EPS grew) | 53 | +13.9% | +17.3% | 79% |
| Bad (rev or EPS declined) | 31 | +16.7% | +22.2% | 81% |
"Bad" earnings produced higher median returns, higher mean returns, and a higher positive hit rate than "good" earnings.
The "Double Beat" Paradox
The most counterintuitive result: filings where revenue grew AND gross margins expanded — the strongest possible fundamental signal — produced the weakest subsequent returns.
| Filing Quality | Filings | Median 12M | Mean 12M | % Positive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue growth + margin expansion | 36 | +11.7% | +12.5% | 69% |
| Everything else | 48 | +23.0% | +24.0% | 88% |
Filings that weren't "double beats" outperformed by 11 percentage points in median return and were positive 88% of the time vs. 69%.
Why This Happens
The explanation is not that weak fundamentals cause strong returns. It's that post-filing returns are driven by the gap between expectations and reality — not by the absolute quality of the filing.
When a company files declining revenue, the market has usually already priced in the decline. The stock has been sold down ahead of the filing. If the decline isn't as bad as feared, or if the balance sheet is stronger than expected, or if the company provides a credible path to recovery, the filing becomes the catalyst for repricing upward. The bad news was the expectation; the filing confirming "not as bad as feared" is the surprise.
Conversely, when a company files strong revenue growth and expanding margins, the market has often priced in the strength. The stock has already rallied ahead of the filing. Even excellent results may merely confirm what was expected — producing modest post-filing drift rather than a meaningful move.
This is why the Earnings Market Reaction Heatmap exists alongside XBRL-tagged financial statements and calculated metrics on GeminIQ. The filing tells you what happened. The heatmap tells you what the market did with that information. Neither is complete without the other.
Apple: The Case Study in Fundamentals vs. Returns
Apple's 17-year filing history is the perfect illustration. Here are the fundamentals alongside the heatmap for every annual filing:
| FY | Revenue | Rev Growth | EPS Growth | Gross Margin | GM Change | ROIC | 12M Return |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | $108.2B | +66% | +82% | 40.5% | +1.1pp | 50% | +75.5% |
| 2012 | $156.5B | +45% | +59% | 43.9% | +3.4pp | 49% | -17.0% |
| 2013 | $170.9B | +9% | -10% | 37.6% | -6.2pp | 32% | +37.4% |
| 2015 | $233.7B | +28% | +43% | 40.1% | +1.5pp | 43% | -3.5% |
| 2016 | $215.6B | -8% | -10% | 39.1% | -1.0pp | 29% | +33.7% |
| 2019 | $260.2B | -2% | -0.4% | 37.8% | -0.5pp | 32% | +82.3% |
| 2020 | $274.5B | +6% | +11% | 38.2% | +0.4pp | 40% | +35.8% |
| 2021 | $365.8B | +33% | +71% | 41.8% | +3.5pp | 66% | +1.0% |
| 2023 | $383.3B | -3% | +0.1% | 44.1% | +0.8pp | 69% | +29.6% |
| 2024 | $391.0B | +2% | -0.8% | 46.2% | +2.1pp | 69% | +15.1% |
Three milestone cases tell the story:
FY2012: The best earnings Apple ever filed produced its worst return. Revenue surged 45%, EPS grew 59%, gross margins expanded 3.4 percentage points to 43.9%, and ROIC was 49%. On every fundamental metric, this was Apple at peak performance. The 12-month return: -17.0% — the worst in the entire 17-year dataset. The market had priced in the iPhone-driven supercycle. Peak earnings became peak stock.
FY2021: Monster results, flat stock. Revenue exploded 33%, EPS grew 71%, gross margins expanded 3.5 percentage points, and ROIC jumped from 40% to 66%. The most impressive year-over-year improvement in Apple's recent history. The 12-month return: +1.0%. The pandemic-driven acceleration was already reflected in the stock price.
FY2019: Declining revenue, best return ever. Revenue fell 2%, EPS was essentially flat, and gross margins contracted 0.5 percentage points. This was Apple's weakest filing since FY2016. The 12-month return: +82.3% — the best in the dataset by a wide margin. The market had oversold Apple on trade war fears and iPhone demand concerns. The "weak" filing was actually better than feared.
The pattern is unmistakable: Apple's strongest fundamentals corresponded to its weakest subsequent returns, and vice versa. The filing data was essential for understanding the business. The heatmap data was essential for understanding the stock.
GeminIQ Tip: Apple's Earnings Market Reaction Heatmap is available on GeminIQ, showing every filing's 1-through-12-month return alongside the XBRL-tagged financial statements and 50+ calculated metrics that provide the fundamental context. You can see both the fundamentals and the market's reaction in one view.
The Seven-Company Scorecard
Here is the complete 10-K summary for each company, ranked by median 12-month post-filing return:
| Company | Sector | Filings | Med 1M | Med 3M | Med 6M | Med 12M | % Pos 12M | Best 12M | Worst 12M |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AAPL | Technology | 17 | +0.5% | +3.6% | +6.1% | +30.5% | 88% | +82.3% | -17.0% |
| MSFT | Technology | 16 | +1.0% | +0.9% | +10.4% | +22.4% | 87% | +44.0% | -5.8% |
| UNH | Healthcare | 17 | +3.1% | +4.7% | +13.4% | +16.4% | 88% | +50.1% | -22.1% |
| CAT | Industrials | 17 | -1.1% | +4.7% | +2.4% | +13.8% | 69% | +76.8% | -26.9% |
| JPM | Financials | 17 | -1.8% | -3.2% | +3.9% | +13.6% | 62% | +53.3% | -18.1% |
| JNJ | Healthcare/Staples | 17 | +1.6% | +2.7% | +7.0% | +10.7% | 81% | +34.0% | -7.1% |
| DECK | Consumer (Mid-Cap) | 15 | +0.4% | +6.4% | +14.4% | +6.0% | 50% | +79.0% | -44.0% |
Caterpillar: Where the Contrarian Signal Is Strongest
Caterpillar's data produces the most dramatic examples of weak fundamentals followed by exceptional returns — because the cyclical amplification of industrial earnings creates the widest expectation gaps.
| FY | Revenue | Rev Growth | EPS Growth | Gross Margin | ROIC | 12M Return |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | $44.1B | -20% | -29% | 24.0% | 19% | +49.0% |
| 2016 | $38.5B | -13% | -103% (loss) | 26.5% | 3% | +75.7% |
| 2019 | $53.8B | -2% | +4% | 31.9% | 89% | +45.5% |
| 2024 | $64.8B | -3% | +10% | 38.0% | 74% | +76.8% |
Caterpillar's FY2016 is the most extreme example in the entire dataset: revenue declined 13%, the company reported a net loss (EPS -103%), and ROIC collapsed to 3%. Twelve months later, the stock was up 75.7% — the third-best 10-K return across all 7 companies and 17 years.
What happened? By the time CAT filed its FY2016 10-K, the market had already priced in the commodity downturn and global capex decline. The stock had been punished for two years. The 10-K confirmed the weakness — but the trough in CAT's cycle was already visible in the balance sheet. Working capital was being managed conservatively. Free cash flow remained positive at $4.5 billion. And the commodity cycle was beginning to turn.
In contrast, CAT's FY2011 filing — revenue surging 44%, EPS up 81%, ROIC at 48% — was followed by a -13.2% twelve-month return. Peak cycle earnings, peak stock.
The cycle plays out repeatedly: CAT FY2015 (-20% revenue → +49.0% return), FY2019 (-2% revenue filed just before COVID → +45.5%), and FY2024 (-3% revenue → +76.8%). Each time, the "weak" filing occurred at or near the trough, and the market repriced over the following year.
Microsoft: Consistent Quality, Consistent Recovery
Microsoft's fundamental trajectory is the steadiest in the dataset — sixteen consecutive years of revenue growth (except FY2016), with operating margins expanding from 38.6% in FY2010 to 45.6% in FY2025 and ROIC improving from 40% to 32% as the business scaled.
| FY | Revenue | Rev Growth | EPS Growth | Op Margin | ROIC | 12M Return |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | $85.3B | -9% | +42% | 23.7% | 14% | +29.8% |
| 2019 | $125.8B | +14% | +138% | 34.1% | 22% | +44.0% |
| 2021 | $168.1B | +18% | +40% | 41.6% | 31% | -5.8% |
| 2022 | $198.3B | +18% | +20% | 42.1% | 37% | +22.4% |
| 2024 | $245.1B | +16% | +22% | 44.6% | 34% | +18.2% |
The contrarian pattern appears here too: FY2021 — the strongest combination of growth and margin expansion in Microsoft's recent history (+18% revenue, +40% EPS, 41.6% operating margins) — produced the only negative 12-month return (-5.8%). Meanwhile, FY2016 — the only year revenue declined — was followed by a +29.8% return.
But Microsoft's most notable feature is its 83% dip-recovery rate: five out of six times the stock was down three months after the 10-K filing, it recovered to positive territory by month twelve. This recovery rate is the highest in the dataset, reflecting the depth of analyst coverage and institutional ownership that efficiently prices MSFT over time.
JPMorgan Chase: Financials Behave Differently
JPMorgan's fundamentals are structurally different from the other companies — as a bank, its "revenue" includes net interest income and noninterest revenue, and its "gross margin" reflects the spread business rather than product economics. But the filing-to-return relationship follows the same contrarian pattern.
JPM's strongest 12-month returns followed filings with pedestrian or weak fundamentals:
- FY2015 (revenue -0.7%, net margin 24.0%): +53.3% twelve-month return
- FY2016 (revenue flat, net margin 23.9%): +31.2%
- FY2024 (revenue +12%, EPS +22%): +21.5% — but this was the second-strongest filing, confirming that even for JPM, the moderate-growth filings outperformed
JPM's unique feature is the negative median first-month return (-1.8%) — the weakest short-term post-filing behavior in the dataset. Bank 10-Ks are filed in February, into the macroeconomic uncertainty of a new year. The market takes months to validate whether the credit quality and margin trends in the filing will persist. By month six, the median turns positive (+3.9%), and by twelve months the pattern resolves favorably 62% of the time.
Johnson & Johnson: The Stability Benchmark
JNJ's filing data demonstrates what the contrarian pattern looks like in a low-volatility defensive name. The one-month return range (-9.4% to +6.9%) and twelve-month range (-7.1% to +34.0%) are the narrowest in the dataset — roughly half the spread of AAPL.
The fundamental-return correlation tells the same story but in a muted register:
- FY2024 (revenue +4%, EPS -58%): +34.0% — the best 12-month return in JNJ's dataset, following a filing with sharply declining earnings
- FY2014 (revenue +4%, EPS +24%, margins expanding): -1.8% — flat to slightly negative despite strong fundamentals
JNJ's post-filing pattern is characteristic of the defensive sector: lower ceiling, higher floor, and the same contrarian relationship between filing quality and subsequent returns — just with smaller amplitude. For investors using GeminIQ's Dividend Growth Screen, JNJ's heatmap provides reassurance: 81% positive at twelve months with a worst case of just -7.1%.
UnitedHealth: What a Structural Break Looks Like
UNH carried one of the strongest track records in the dataset: 88% positive at twelve months, median +16.4%, with fifteen consecutive filings (FY2009–FY2023) producing only one marginally negative twelve-month return (-0.4% in FY2011).
The fundamentals supported the pattern — UNH grew revenue from $87 billion to $400 billion over the period, with operating margins holding steady near 8% and ROIC consistently around 17-25%. This was a textbook compounder.
Then FY2024 broke the pattern. The filing itself reported $400.3 billion in revenue (+8% growth) with 8.1% operating margins — solid numbers. The first-month return was +10.8%, which appeared to confirm the historical pattern. But the subsequent three months brought a -37.4% collapse, extending to -45.8% at six months and -22.1% at twelve months.
The fundamentals in the filing didn't predict this. The break came from outside: a CEO change, a DOJ investigation into billing practices, and a fundamental repricing of managed care regulatory risk. The filing's EPS decline of -35% was a signal — but the magnitude of the subsequent stock decline far exceeded what the filing data alone would suggest.
This is the essential lesson: post-filing patterns are base rates built on the assumption that the company's competitive position and regulatory environment remain structurally intact. When that assumption breaks — as it did for UNH in 2024 — the historical pattern is void. GeminIQ's insider transaction timeline and the filing's own risk factors provide the supplementary signals for detecting structural breaks before they show up in the stock price.
Deckers Outdoor: Mid-Cap Amplification
Deckers (DECK) — the parent of HOKA and UGG — is the mid-cap in our dataset. Its twelve-month return range of -44.0% to +79.0% (a 123 percentage point spread) is roughly triple JNJ's range. Only 50% of DECK's annual filings were followed by positive twelve-month returns — essentially a coin flip.
The contrarian pattern is present but less reliable in mid-caps. DECK's best twelve-month returns (+79.0% in FY2022, +72.7% in FY2020) followed periods of negative sentiment. But its dip-recovery rate is just 20% — only 1 of 5 three-month dips recovered by month twelve, compared to 83% for Microsoft. The thinner analyst coverage and less efficient pricing mean that mid-cap dips are as likely to reflect genuine revaluation as temporary overreaction.
The Contrarian Signal: What It Means for Your Research
The data across all seven companies tells a consistent story: post-filing returns are not driven by the absolute quality of the filing. They are driven by the gap between what the market expected and what the filing revealed.
This has three practical implications:
1. The filing alone is not enough. Reading the 10-K (see our guide: How to Read a 10-K) tells you what happened. But to assess whether the stock is likely to appreciate, you also need to know what the market already priced in. A "bad" filing that's better than feared (Apple FY2019, Caterpillar FY2016) can produce enormous returns. A "great" filing that merely confirms expectations (Apple FY2012, FY2021) can produce nothing — or worse.
2. The heatmap provides the missing context. GeminIQ's Earnings Market Reaction Heatmap shows you the historical relationship between filings and returns for any company — across every quarter and every annual filing in the XBRL era. When a stock drops after a strong filing, the heatmap tells you whether similar drops have historically been buying opportunities or signals of further decline.
3. Fundamental quality still matters — for the long term. The contrarian signal operates on a twelve-month timeframe. Over the full 17-year period, the companies with the strongest fundamental trajectories (Apple, Microsoft, UnitedHealth) also produced the strongest cumulative returns. Quality compounds. But within any given filing cycle, the expectation gap dominates the return.
How to Use Filing Data and the Heatmap Together
Before the filing: Check the heatmap. Understand the company's historical post-filing pattern. Apple at 88% positive is a very different base rate than DECK at 50%.
Read the filing: Use GeminIQ's XBRL-tagged financial statements and calculated metrics to assess the fundamentals: revenue growth, margin trends, ROIC, free cash flow. Is the business improving, stable, or deteriorating?
Assess the expectation gap: Compare the filing quality to what the market appeared to be pricing. A stock that dropped 20% ahead of the filing has a lower expectation bar than one that rallied 20%. Check insider transactions — are insiders buying the dip? Check institutional ownership — is professional capital accumulating or distributing?
Calibrate by company type: For large-cap technology (AAPL, MSFT): the base rate is strong, dip-recovery is reliable, and weak filings after sell-offs have historically been buying opportunities. For cyclicals (CAT): the contrarian signal is the strongest but the timing is noisiest. For defensives (JNJ): the range is narrow and the outcomes are consistent. For mid-caps (DECK): the base rate is essentially a coin flip — require fundamental confirmation before acting.
Use the screener to find opportunities. GeminIQ's Stock Screener lets you filter for companies with strong underlying quality — high ROIC, conservative leverage, growing free cash flow — that may be temporarily mispriced after a "weak" filing. The Buffett-Style Screen and Quality Compounder Screen identify the durable businesses where the contrarian signal is most reliable.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this mean I should avoid companies with strong earnings? No. The data shows that filing quality alone doesn't predict subsequent returns — expectations matter more. Companies with strong fundamentals compound value over years. But within any single filing cycle, a "strong" filing can produce flat or negative returns if the strength was already priced in. The heatmap helps you distinguish between the two.
How far back does the Earnings Market Reaction Heatmap go? The heatmap covers the full XBRL era — approximately 17 years of filing data, going back to 2009 for large accelerated filers.
Does the heatmap track 10-Q filings as well as 10-Ks? Yes. Every quarterly 10-Q and annual 10-K filing has its own entry in the heatmap. This analysis covers 116 annual filings and 462 quarterly filings across the 7 companies studied.
Can post-filing return patterns predict future performance? Past patterns establish base rates, not predictions. The heatmap is a tool for contextualizing current filing reactions against historical behavior. UNH's FY2024 experience — a broken 15-year positive streak — is the clearest reminder that base rates have limits.
Why do mid-caps behave so differently from large-caps? Thinner analyst coverage, lower institutional ownership, and less efficient price discovery. DECK's 12-month return standard deviation of 42.7% is roughly double any large-cap in our dataset. The expectation gap is wider and noisier, making the contrarian signal less reliable.
Can I see this data — fundamentals and heatmap together — for any company on GeminIQ? Yes. The Earnings Market Reaction Heatmap, XBRL-tagged financial statements, and 50+ calculated metrics are available on every company page on GeminIQ for every filing in the company's history.
The Bottom Line
Across 578 filings and 17 years of data, the most important finding is not that stocks tend to go up after filings — they do (75% positive at twelve months). It's that the quality of the filing does not predict the magnitude or direction of the subsequent return. Revenue decliners outperformed revenue growers. "Bad" earnings outperformed "good" earnings. The strongest possible fundamental signal — revenue growth plus margin expansion — produced the weakest median return.
The explanation is straightforward: markets are forward-looking. By the time a filing lands, the results are partially or fully priced in. The post-filing return is driven by the gap between expectations and reality, not by the reality alone. And that gap is only measurable when you have both the fundamental data (what was filed) and the behavioral data (what the market did with it).
GeminIQ provides both: XBRL-tagged financial statements showing exactly what the company reported, alongside the Earnings Market Reaction Heatmap showing exactly how the market responded — for every filing, for every company, across 17+ years of history.
Most financial websites rely on third-party aggregators that simplify or process data before you ever see it. We built GeminIQ because we believe you deserve a better fundamental analysis tool—one that goes beyond basic price charts and processed numbers. We extract our data directly from SEC 10-K and 10-Q filings to ensure that when you look at a balance sheet or a cash flow statement, you are seeing the numbers exactly how the company reported them. GeminIQ turns raw 10-K and 10-Q filings into traceable financial statements, calculated metrics, charts, screeners, and watchlists for US public company research. Our goal is to give you the tools to verify the narrative for yourself using clean, traceable data. Start researching now at GeminIQ.
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All post-filing return data sourced from GeminIQ's Earnings Market Reaction Heatmap. Fundamental data sourced from XBRL-tagged SEC filings via GeminIQ. Returns calculated from adjusted closing prices on the filing date to adjusted closing prices at each interval. Dataset includes 116 annual (10-K) and 462 quarterly (10-Q) filings across 7 companies from 2009 to 2026. Fundamental analysis covers 6 companies with full financial statement data (AAPL, MSFT, JPM, JNJ, CAT, UNH).
Disclaimer: The content in this blog is for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, or tax advice. Investing involves risk, including the loss of principal. Past performance is not indicative of future results. The post-filing return patterns discussed in this article represent historical observations and do not constitute predictions of future stock price movements. The views expressed are my own and not intended as financial advice or a guarantee of future performance.