How To Trade JetBlue Stock Ahead of Its Earnings?

JetBlue Airways (NASDAQ:JBLU) is scheduled to report its earnings on Tuesday, July 29, 2025. Over the last five years, JetBlue’s stock has frequently experienced negative one-day returns following earnings announcements, occurring in 80% of instances. The median one-day decline was -5.9%, with the largest single-day drop a significant -25.7%. This historical data suggests a strong pattern of negative price action immediately after earnings for JBLU.

While the actual results compared to consensus estimates are paramount, understanding these historical patterns can offer an advantage for event-driven traders. There are two main approaches to leverage this information:

• Pre-Earnings Positioning: Traders might consider taking a position before the earnings release, factoring in the historical probabilities.
• Post-Earnings Analysis: Alternatively, traders can analyze the correlation between immediate and medium-term returns after the earnings are released to inform their positioning.

Analysts’ consensus estimates for the upcoming quarter predict a loss of $0.33 per share on revenue of $2.29 billion. This contrasts with the year-ago quarter, where the company reported earnings of $0.08 per share on revenue of $2.43 billion, indicating a projected decline in both profitability and revenue.

From a fundamental perspective, JetBlue has a current market capitalization of approximately $1.5 billion. Over the last twelve months, the company generated $9.2 billion in revenue. However, it was operationally loss-making, with operating losses of $110 million and a net loss of $287 million.

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JetBlue Airways’ 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 4 positive and 16 negative one-day (1D) returns observed. In summary, positive 1D returns were seen about 20% of the time.
• However, this percentage decreases to 17% if we consider data for the last 3 years instead of 5.
• Median of the 4 positive returns = 2.7%, and median of the 16 negative returns = -5.9%

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

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.

Is There Any Correlation With Peer Earnings?

Sometimes, peer performance can have influence on post-earnings stock reaction. In fact, the pricing-in might begin before the earnings are announced. Here is some historical data on the past post-earnings performance of JetBlue Airways stock compared with the stock performance of peers that reported earnings just before JetBlue Airways. For fair comparison, peer stock returns also represent post-earnings one-day (1D) returns.

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