The Closest Thing to a Time Machine: My Top 3 Reasons I Love Earnings
I was ten years old the first time I saw Back to the Future in a movie theater.
It was the summer of 1985. I remember sitting in that red fabric seat, feet barely flat on the floor, popcorn and Coke balanced carefully in my lap – no cup holders back then. The lights dimmed, the projector hummed, and for the next two hours I was somewhere else entirely.
There’s a lot to like: the iconic car and soundtrack, the fantastic performances and sharp humor. But the thing that burned into my brain wasn’t the car or the jokes.
It was the clock tower. What a great scene…
The storm is rolling in. The cable is stretched across the street. Doc is shouting at Marty that lightning would strike at exactly 10:04 p.m. Not maybe. Not possibly. Exactly.
As a kid, that idea felt – well, electric. Lightning — something wild and uncontrollable — suddenly had a schedule. A time. A place. All you had to do was be standing in the right spot with the right mechanism, and you could harness it to change the course of your history.
I didn’t know it then, but that scene lodged itself somewhere deep.
Years passed. School, college, careers. The movie became a cultural touchstone for a generation. But the idea stayed with me — the idea that chaos isn’t always chaos. Sometimes it’s structured. Sometimes it’s scheduled.
Fast forward to my early days as a trader.
Instead of a movie screen, I was staring at price charts.
Markets are loud. There’s always a headline, always a hot take, always someone shouting about the next big thing.
You turn your screen on and a stock is up 18% on some headline you didn’t see coming. Another one gaps down 12% overnight. By the time you read the news and understand what happened, the move is over and it feels like the ship has already sailed.
It can feel random. It can feel unfair. It can feel like everyone else knew something you didn’t.
But then I realized something that took me back to that theater in 1985…
Not all volatility is random.
Some of it is scheduled.
Some of it comes with a timestamp.
And if you know when and where the lightning is going to strike — if you build the right mechanism in advance — you don’t need to control the storm.
You just need to be ready for it…
Very early in my career I developed a deep love and appreciation for the simple earnings trade. They represent one of the rare moments in the market where uncertainty becomes structured. Sitting at the intersection of expectation, volatility, and psychology, they channel forces that drive price movement more than any headline ever could.
And just like that clock tower scene – when you approach it correctly, it transforms what feels like chaos into potentially life-changing opportunities. So today I’m going to share with you the three biggest reasons earnings setups are some of my favorite trades a person can take.
https://investorplace.com/dailylive/2026/02/the-next-best-thing-to-a-time-machine-my-top-3-reasons-i-love-earnings/
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