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Check the earnings date before you sell an option

Before you sell a put or a call, find the company's next earnings date. If it falls inside your expiry, you're selling into the one night the stock is most likely to jump. Here's where to look, and the rule.

Options guide · 7-minute read · Updated 2026-10-26

The short answer

The rule in one line: no earnings date inside the expiry unless you chose it on purpose. Companies report four times a year, after the close or before the open, and the stock can move 10% or more before you can trade. In the wheel strategy, that gap is a common way a comfortable put ends up deep in the money overnight.

Finding the date takes a minute. Most option chains mark it, and the company's own investor page lists it.

Why one night matters so much

On a normal day, a stock moves a little, and your option moves a little with it. You can react. On earnings night the stock reprices in one jump between the close and the open. Your strike doesn't get a chance to hold.

The market knows this, which is why premiums swell before earnings. That fat premium is the market's price for the jump. If you sell it, you're taking the other side of a bet you have no edge in. See IV crush explained for why the premium collapses after the news.

Where to find the earnings date

1. Your broker's options chain. Most chains show a small icon or a line like "Earnings: Oct 29 after close" near the expiry list. Our guide on how to read an options chain shows where.
2. The company's investor relations page. Search the company name plus "investor relations." Confirmed dates are posted there first.
3. A public earnings calendar. Nasdaq, Yahoo Finance and others list dates. Early in the quarter these are estimates; the word "confirmed" or "estimated" usually appears beside the date.
4. The last report. Companies report on a near-fixed rhythm. Last quarter's date plus roughly 13 weeks is a good guess until it's confirmed.

Write the date in your watchlist next to each name. Re-check it monthly; dates move.

The rule, with its one exception

Default: pick an expiry that ends before the earnings date, or wait until after it.

The exception: some sellers choose to hold through earnings on purpose, with a smaller size and a strike far outside the expected move, because they'd be glad to own the stock after a drop. That's a decision, not an accident. Our page on cash-secured puts before earnings shows how people size it.

What never works is finding out about earnings the morning after.

A worked example (an illustration, not a trade idea)

A made-up stock, XYZ, trades at $50. Earnings are in 18 days. You didn't check.

You sell a 30-day $46 put for $1.40. That's a bigger premium than usual, which should have been the clue. You collect $140. Cash set aside: $4,600.

Earnings night: sales miss. XYZ opens at $39.

The same put, sold with an expiry the Friday before earnings, would have paid about $0.60 instead of $1.40. That's the trade: $80 less premium, and no night where the stock can reprice 22% while you sleep.

The two recovery rows are real possibilities too. But you'd be relying on a bounce, which is guessing direction, the thing the wheel was meant to replace.

When earnings land mid-cycle on shares you already own

If you've been assigned and now hold the shares, earnings will come around while you're selling calls. Here the choice is different: you own the stock either way, so the earnings risk is on the shares, not the call.

Many holders simply don't sell a call across earnings, so a big jump up doesn't get capped at the strike. Others sell a far strike. Either is fine. Selling a tight call across earnings on shares you're underwater on is the version that stings, because the stock rallies through your strike and you're called away below your cost.

A two-minute routine

1. Open the chain. Find the earnings marker.
2. If none shows, open the investor relations page.
3. Write the date and "confirmed" or "estimated" in your watchlist.
4. Choose the expiry: before the date, or after it.
5. If you choose to hold through it anyway, write down why, and halve your size.

Questions