How To Trade CSX Stock Ahead of Its Upcoming Earnings?

CSX (NASDAQ:CSX) is scheduled to announce its earnings on Wednesday, July 23, 2025. Historically, CSX has shown a positive one-day return in 65% of instances following its earnings announcements over the past five years. The median positive return on these days was 2.6%, with a maximum one-day positive return of 4.3%.

For event-driven traders, understanding these historical patterns can provide a strategic advantage, though actual results against consensus estimates will be a primary driver. There are two main approaches to consider:

• Pre-Earnings Positioning: Based on historical odds, you could choose to open a position before the earnings release.
• Post-Earnings Positioning: Alternatively, you could analyze the correlation between immediate and medium-term returns after the earnings are released and then position yourself accordingly.

Current consensus estimates for CSX’s upcoming earnings report are $0.41 per share on sales of $3.57 billion. This compares to earnings of $0.49 per share on sales of $3.7 billion in the same quarter last year.

From a fundamental perspective, CSX currently has a market capitalization of $65 billion. Over the last twelve months, the company reported revenues of $14 billion, with $5.1 billion in operating profits and a net income of $3.2 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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CSX’s 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 13 positive and 7 negative one-day (1D) returns observed. In summary, positive 1D returns were seen about 65% of the time.
• However, this percentage decreases to 64% if we consider data for the last 3 years instead of 5.
• Median of the 13 positive returns = 2.6%, and median of the 7 negative returns = -3.2%

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

CSX 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.

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

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