LMT

How LMT’s Earnings Beat Rate Translates into Price Action

Over the last eight reported quarters, LMT beat the official consensus six times, for a 75% beat rate, and produced an average earnings surprise of 5.4%. Despite that headline strength, the average five-day price move in the five trading days after those same reports is -1.04%, and GammaQC classifies the post-earnings drift as “down.” That divergence is the central take-away for any earnings-trading framework: a beat on the release does not guarantee a follow-through rally.

The individual reports sharpen the picture. On 2026-07-23 the company delivered $7.94 EPS versus a $7.22 estimate, a 10.0% surprise, yet the stock rose just 0.97% over the next five days. On 2026-04-23 a miss of -4.5% ($6.44 actual versus $6.74 estimate) sent the stock down -2.23% over five days. The 2025-10-21 beat ($6.95 versus $6.38, an 8.9% surprise) was followed by a -0.76% five-day move. Only one of the last four prints produced a positive five-day drift, and the four most recent one-day reactions averaged 1.98% in absolute terms. The pattern is short-term volatility followed by modest downward drift, regardless of whether the quarter beat or missed.

Options-Flow Dynamics Around the Oct. 20 Print

The next scheduled report is 2026-10-20 before the open, with a consensus EPS estimate of $7.58. As that date approaches, shorter-dated options typically build implied volatility into the close of the prior session. A disciplined way to size that implied move is to compare the at-the-money straddle price to the recent historical record. Over the last four quarters the absolute one-day move averaged 1.98%, so an earnings straddle implying a move far larger than that can signal the market is pricing extra event risk, while a straddle implying less may be discounting the event.

Post-earnings flow is also shaped by the -1.04% average five-day drift. Even if the report is received positively, long-gamma structures can lose value from IV crush or time decay during the weak follow-through that has dominated this data set. Put/call skew and net premium direction can show whether the market’s real expectation is asymmetrically skewed to the upside or downside. With the stock at $580.31 and the 50-day EMA at $541.11, the current location above a rising moving average may attract bullish flow into the event, but the historical drift suggests watching how the stock behaves in the sessions after the print, not only at the opening bell.

What a Disciplined Trader Watches

For the Oct. 20 release, a trader focused on this history would likely watch three things. First, the implied move priced into the closest expiration relative to the 1.98% average absolute one-day move and the four one-day results: +2.46%, -3.08%, +1.88%, and -0.48%. Second, whether the next-day move confirms or contradicts the subsequent five-day drift; in this data set the five-day move was -1.04% on average, so the near-term path usually retraces or dampens the first-day excitement. Third, technical context: price near $580.31 with an RSI of 67.0 and the 50-day EMA at $541.11 gives concrete levels against which to gauge any reaction.

Nothing in the historical figures predicts the outcome of the Oct. 20 report; they only describe how LMT has traded around earnings in the recent past. For a fuller picture, look at the full institutional verdict and updated options positioning ahead of the 2026-10-20 print.