Should You Buy or Sell Abbott Laboratories Stock Ahead of Its Upcoming Earnings?

Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) is set to release its second-quarter earnings on Thursday, July 17, 2025. For event-driven traders, analyzing the stock’s historical reactions to earnings reports can provide valuable insights.

Looking at the past five years, ABT stock has shown a tendency for negative one-day returns following earnings announcements in 60% of instances. The median negative return during these periods was -2.4%, with a maximum one-day negative return of -6.5%. Separately, see the potential for growth in Google Stock To $350?

While the upcoming results against consensus and expectations will be a primary driver, understanding these historical patterns can potentially influence trading decisions. Traders typically consider two main approaches:

• Pre-Earnings Positioning: Based on the historical probabilities, one might choose to establish a position prior to the earnings release.
• Post-Earnings Positioning: Alternatively, traders could wait for the earnings to be announced, then assess the correlation between immediate and medium-term returns to guide their subsequent actions.

Analysts’ consensus estimates for Abbott’s second quarter are earnings of $1.25 per share on sales of $11.02 billion. This is notably higher than the year-ago quarter, which reported earnings of $1.14 per share on sales of $10.38 billion.

From a fundamental perspective, Abbott Laboratories has a current market capitalization of approximately $230 billion. Over the last twelve months, the company generated $42 billion in revenue. It has demonstrated strong profitability, with $7.1 billion in operating profits and a substantial net income of $14 billion. That said, if you seek upside with lower volatility than individual stocks, the Trefis High Quality portfolio presents an alternative — having outperformed the S&P 500 and generated returns exceeding 91% since its inception.

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Abbott Laboratories’ Historical Odds Of Positive Post-Earnings Return

Some observations on one-day (1D) post-earnings returns:

• There are 20 earnings data points recorded over the last five years, with 8 positive and 12 negative one-day (1D) returns observed. In summary, positive 1D returns were seen about 40% of the time.
• Notably, this percentage increases to 50% if we consider data for the last 3 years instead of 5.
• Median of the 8 positive returns = 3.0%, and median of the 12 negative returns = -2.4%

Additional data for observed 5-Day (5D), and 21-Day (21D) returns post earnings are summarized along with the statistics in the table below.

ABT 1D, 5D, and 21D Post Earnings Return

Correlation Between 1D, 5D, and 21D Historical Returns

A relatively less risky strategy (though not useful if the correlation is low) is to understand the correlation between short-term and medium-term returns post earnings, find a pair that has the highest correlation, and execute the appropriate trade. For example, if 1D and 5D show the highest correlation, a trader can position themselves “long” for the next 5 days if 1D post-earnings return is positive. Here is some correlation data based on 5-year and 3-year (more recent) history. Note that the correlation 1D_5D refers to the correlation between 1D post-earnings returns and subsequent 5D returns.

ABT Correlation Between 1D, 5D and 21D Historical Returns

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