How Will Union Pacific Stock React To Its Upcoming Earnings?

Union Pacific (NYSE:UNP) is scheduled to announce its earnings on Thursday, July 24, 2025. Historically, UNP stock has shown a tendency for negative one-day returns following earnings announcements. Over the past five years, the stock experienced a decline on the day after earnings in 55% of cases. The median one-day drop was -2.4%, with the largest single-day decline reaching -6.8%.

While the actual results compared to consensus estimates will be crucial, understanding these historical patterns can provide an edge for event-driven traders. There are two primary approaches to leverage this information:

• Pre-Earnings Positioning: Based on historical probabilities, traders might consider taking a position before the earnings release.
• 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 are projecting earnings of $2.90 per share on sales of $6.15 billion for the upcoming quarter. This would represent an increase from the year-ago quarter’s earnings of $2.74 per share on revenue of $6.01 billion.

From a fundamental perspective, Union Pacific has a current market capitalization of $136 billion. Over the last twelve months, the company generated $24 billion in revenue, with operating profits of $9.7 billion and a net income of $6.7 billion, indicating strong operational profitability.

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Union Pacific’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 9 positive and 11 negative one-day (1D) returns observed. In summary, positive 1D returns were seen about 45% of the time.
• Notably, this percentage decreases to 42% if we consider data for the last 3 years instead of 5.
• Median of the 9 positive returns = 2.1%, and median of the 11 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.

UNP 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.

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

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