How To Trade United Airlines Stock Ahead of Its Upcoming Earnings?

United Airlines (NASDAQ:UAL) is scheduled to release its earnings report on Thursday, July 17, 2025. For event-driven traders, understanding historical stock performance around earnings releases can be a valuable tool, though the actual results compared to consensus estimates will ultimately drive the stock’s immediate reaction.

Looking at the past five years, UAL stock has frequently experienced negative one-day returns following earnings announcements. In 60% of instances, the stock has declined, with a median negative return of -4.0% and a maximum one-day drop of -10.2%.

Traders can approach this event in two ways:

• Pre-earnings positioning: Traders might consider taking a position before the earnings release, factoring in these historical probabilities.
• Post-earnings positioning: Analyze the correlation between immediate and medium-term returns after the earnings are released to guide trading decisions.

Current consensus estimates anticipate United Airlines to report earnings of $3.88 per share on revenue of $15.33 billion. This compares to the year-ago quarter’s earnings of $4.14 per share on revenue of $14.99 billion.

From a fundamental perspective, United Airlines currently has a market capitalization of $29 billion. Over the last twelve months, the company generated $58 billion in revenue, with $5.6 billion in operating profits and a net income of $3.7 billion, indicating operational profitability. 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. Also, see – Trump’s Russia Math, Simplified.

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United Airlines’ 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 = 6.4%, and median of the 12 negative returns = -4.0%

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

UAL 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.

UAL Correlation Between 1D, 5D and 21D Historical 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 United Airlines stock compared with the stock performance of peers that reported earnings just before United Airlines. For fair comparison, peer stock returns also represent post-earnings one-day (1D) returns.

UAL Correlation With Peer Earnings

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