Agent skill

Earnings Revisions and Guidance

by HKUDS in HKUDS/Vibe-Trading

Tracks analyst estimate revisions, earnings surprises, management guidance and post-earnings drift for US and Hong Kong stocks, and turns them into long and short signals.

MITAuto-check passedBusiness, Finance & HR

Install Earnings Revisions and Guidance

skills CLI
$ npx skills add HKUDS/Vibe-Trading --skill earnings-revision -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install HKUDS/Vibe-Trading earnings-revision --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/HKUDS/Vibe-Trading.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/agent/src/skills/earnings-revision .claude/skills/earnings-revision && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
earnings-revision
GitHub stars
35k
Token cost
~2.5k tokens
SKILL.md length
774 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
89
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

Tracks analyst estimate revisions, earnings surprises, management guidance and post-earnings drift for US and Hong Kong stocks, and turns them into long and short signals.

  • Works in 5 steps: Earnings Revision Momentum → Key Metrics → Post-Earnings Announcement Drift (PEAD) → …
  • Scoring an earnings surprise against analyst consensus
  • SKILL.md covers Overview, Core Concepts, Earnings Calendar and Workflow and Multi-Market Considerations, plus 2 more sections
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md

What it does

The skill treats earnings revisions as a persistent alpha factor: stocks with upward estimate changes tend to keep outperforming, and the reverse holds for downward ones. It ranks signal types from the earnings surprise and consensus revision breadth to estimate size changes, guidance revisions and whisper-number misses, listing for each how long the effect is said to last.

Key metrics are defined as short formulas: standardized unexpected earnings, a revision breadth ratio of upgrades minus downgrades over total analysts, and estimate dispersion. Post-earnings announcement drift gets quintile-based trading rules, with the top surprise quintile held long for 60 to 90 days and the bottom quintile avoided or shorted, plus filters such as smaller companies, lower institutional ownership and first-time surprises.

When your agent uses it

  • Scoring an earnings surprise against analyst consensus
  • Measuring revision breadth and estimate dispersion for a stock
  • Setting up a post-earnings drift trade by surprise quintile
  • Assessing the effect of a management guidance change

Example prompts

  • “Compute the SUE for this quarter's EPS against consensus and place it in a surprise quintile.”
  • “Check revision breadth for the analysts covering this Hong Kong stock.”
  • “How long should I hold a long position after a top-quintile earnings beat?”
  • “What does a guidance cut usually do to a stock after the announcement?”

Workflow steps

5 steps, taken from the step headings in SKILL.md.

  1. Earnings Revision Momentum
  2. Key Metrics
  3. Post-Earnings Announcement Drift (PEAD)
  4. Management Guidance Analysis
  5. Earnings Quality Indicators

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 8e43007. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md (its code samples are python).

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Earnings Revisions and Guidance loads about 2.5k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 53 tokens; SKILL.md has 774 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~53
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~2.5k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from HKUDS/Vibe-Trading at commit 8e43007, republished under its MIT licence (© HKUDS). 774 words, ~2,503 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/earnings-revision/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder).
name
earnings-revision
description
Earnings estimate revisions, guidance analysis, and post-earnings drift (PEAD) — track analyst consensus changes, earnings surprise patterns, and management guidance shifts for US/HK equities.
category
analysis

Earnings Revision & Guidance Analysis

Overview

Track sell-side analyst estimate revisions, management guidance changes, and post-earnings price drift to generate investment signals. Earnings revisions are among the most persistent and well-documented alpha factors in equity markets — stocks with upward revisions tend to continue outperforming, and vice versa.

Core Concepts

1. Earnings Revision Momentum

The revision signal hierarchy (strongest to weakest):

Signal TypeDescriptionTypical Alpha (annualized)Persistence
Earnings surprise (beat/miss)Actual EPS vs consensus3-8% post-event drift60-90 days (PEAD)
Consensus revision breadth% of analysts revising up vs down4-6% long-short spread3-6 months
Estimate magnitude changeSize of revision relative to prior estimate3-5%1-3 months
Guidance revisionManagement guidance change vs prior5-10% on eventImmediate + 30-60 day drift
Whisper number miss/beatActual vs buy-side whisper (not official consensus)2-4%1-2 weeks
2. Key Metrics

Earnings Surprise:

python
# Standardized Unexpected Earnings (SUE)
sue = (actual_eps - consensus_eps) / std_of_forecast_errors

# Interpretation
# SUE > +2: large positive surprise → strong PEAD signal
# SUE < -2: large negative surprise → strong negative PEAD
# |SUE| < 0.5: in-line with expectations → weak signal

Revision Breadth:

python
# Revision breadth ratio
breadth = (num_upgrades - num_downgrades) / total_analysts

# Interpretation
# breadth > +0.5: strong consensus upgrade momentum
# breadth < -0.5: strong consensus downgrade momentum
# |breadth| < 0.2: mixed / no clear direction

Estimate Dispersion:

python
# Analyst disagreement
dispersion = std_of_estimates / abs(mean_estimate)

# High dispersion (>15%): high uncertainty → larger potential surprise
# Low dispersion (<5%): tight consensus → smaller surprise but higher confidence
3. Post-Earnings Announcement Drift (PEAD)

The most robust anomaly in equity markets: prices continue to drift in the direction of the earnings surprise for 60-90 days after the announcement.

PEAD trading rules:

Surprise QuintileAverage 60-day DriftStrategy
Q5 (top surprise)+4 to +8%Go long, hold 60-90 days
Q4+1 to +3%Mild long
Q3 (in-line)~0%No action
Q2-1 to -3%Mild short / underweight
Q1 (worst surprise)-4 to -8%Go short / avoid, hold 60-90 days

PEAD enhancement filters:

  • Small/mid cap > large cap (less analyst coverage = slower price discovery)
  • Low institutional ownership > high ownership (slower information diffusion)
  • First surprise in a direction > consecutive same-direction surprises
  • Revenue surprise + EPS surprise together > EPS surprise alone
4. Management Guidance Analysis

Guidance types:

TypeWhat It CoversSignal Weight
Revenue guidanceTop-line outlookHigh (harder to manipulate)
EPS guidanceBottom-line outlookMedium (can be managed via buybacks, tax rate)
Margin guidanceProfitability trajectoryHigh (reflects pricing power and cost control)
CapEx guidanceInvestment intentionsMedium (forward-looking growth signal)
Segment guidanceDivision-level detailHigh (reveals where growth is coming from)

Guidance change signals:

python
# Guidance revision scoring
def score_guidance_change(current_guide, prior_guide, consensus):
    # Guide above consensus = positive signal
    if current_guide.midpoint > consensus * 1.02:
        guide_vs_consensus = "above"
    elif current_guide.midpoint < consensus * 0.98:
        guide_vs_consensus = "below"
    else:
        guide_vs_consensus = "inline"

    # Guide raised vs lowered vs maintained
    if prior_guide:
        if current_guide.midpoint > prior_guide.midpoint * 1.01:
            guide_revision = "raised"
        elif current_guide.midpoint < prior_guide.midpoint * 0.99:
            guide_revision = "lowered"
        else:
            guide_revision = "maintained"

    # Strongest signal: raised guidance above consensus
    # Weakest signal: lowered guidance below consensus

Guidance language analysis:

Language PatternInterpretationSignal
"Raising full-year outlook"Confidence in accelerationStrong positive
"Reaffirming guidance"No change, on-trackMild positive (met expectations)
"Narrowing guidance range to upper half"Soft raise without formal revisionPositive
"Updating guidance to reflect..."Euphemism for guidance cutNegative
"Withdrawing guidance"High uncertainty, loss of visibilityStrong negative
"Providing preliminary results"Pre-announcement, usually bad newsNegative (if below consensus)
5. Earnings Quality Indicators

Red flags in earnings reports:

  1. Revenue growing but cash flow declining → accrual manipulation
  2. Changing revenue recognition policy → inflating top line
  3. Declining DSO (Days Sales Outstanding) story contradicted by rising AR → channel stuffing
  4. Beating EPS via lower tax rate or share buyback, not operating improvement
  5. Frequent "non-GAAP adjustments" that always add back expenses → questionable earnings quality
  6. Inventory build outpacing revenue growth → future write-down risk

Quality scoring:

python
earnings_quality = {
    "fcf_conversion": fcf / net_income,           # >0.8 = good, <0.5 = poor
    "accrual_ratio": (net_income - ocf) / avg_assets,  # <5% = good, >10% = concern
    "revenue_cash_alignment": revenue_growth - ocf_growth,  # small gap = good
    "non_gaap_gap": non_gaap_eps - gaap_eps,      # large gap = red flag
    "buyback_eps_boost": eps_growth - net_income_growth,  # large = artificial
}
Show full SKILL.md (311 more words)Show less

Earnings Calendar and Workflow

Pre-Earnings Analysis Checklist
  1. Consensus snapshot: current EPS/revenue consensus, revision trend (30d/60d/90d)
  2. Historical surprise pattern: has the company consistently beat/missed? By how much?
  3. Guidance comparison: last quarter's guidance vs current consensus
  4. Whisper number: buy-side expectations (often 1-3% above street consensus for serial beaters)
  5. Options market pricing: implied move from at-the-money straddle
  6. Sector peers already reported: read-through signals from competitors
Post-Earnings Analysis Checklist
  1. Headline numbers: EPS surprise %, revenue surprise %
  2. Quality of beat/miss: operating income-driven or one-time items?
  3. Guidance change: raised / maintained / lowered / withdrawn
  4. Call tone: management confidence level, Q&A defensiveness
  5. Analyst reaction: immediate revision direction (first 24-48 hours)
  6. Price/volume reaction: gap up/down, reversal, volume multiple vs average

Multi-Market Considerations

US Equities
  • Earnings season: Jan/Apr/Jul/Oct (roughly 2-6 weeks after quarter-end)
  • Data: SEC filings (10-Q within 40 days, 10-K within 60 days for large accelerated filers)
  • Consensus: Bloomberg, Refinitiv, FactSet, Visible Alpha
  • Via yfinance: ticker.earnings_dates, ticker.earnings_history
Hong Kong Equities
  • Earnings season: Mar-Apr (annual), Aug-Sep (interim)
  • Many HK-listed companies report semi-annually, not quarterly
  • Dual-listed (A+H): compare A-share analyst estimates vs HK analyst estimates for arbitrage
  • Via yfinance: yf.Ticker("0700.HK").financials
Key Differences
DimensionUSHK
Reporting frequencyQuarterlySemi-annual (most)
Guidance practiceCommonRare
Analyst coverageDeep (>20 for large caps)Thinner (5-15 for large caps)
Pre-announcementRegulated (Reg FD)Less regulated
Earnings callStandardLess common for mid/small caps

Output Format

## Earnings Revision Analysis — [Ticker]

### Consensus Snapshot
- **Current FY EPS consensus**: $X.XX (N analysts)
- **30-day revision**: [up/down X%] — [N upgrades / N downgrades]
- **60-day revision**: [up/down X%]
- **Estimate dispersion**: [low/medium/high] (CV = X%)

### Last Earnings Event
- **Date**: YYYY-MM-DD | **Quarter**: FY25Q3
- **EPS**: $X.XX actual vs $X.XX consensus (surprise: +X%)
- **Revenue**: $X.XB actual vs $X.XB consensus (surprise: +X%)
- **Guidance**: [raised / maintained / lowered] — FY25 EPS guide: $X.XX-$X.XX
- **Price reaction**: [+X% on day, +X% over 5 days]

### Revision Momentum
- **Breadth**: [+0.6 → strong upgrade momentum]
- **Magnitude**: [average revision +X% over 30 days]
- **PEAD status**: [still within 60-day drift window / drift exhausted]

### Earnings Quality
- **FCF conversion**: X% [strong/adequate/weak]
- **Accrual ratio**: X% [clean/moderate/concern]
- **Non-GAAP gap**: $X.XX [small/large]

### Signal
- **Direction**: [bullish / neutral / bearish]
- **Catalyst**: [next earnings date: YYYY-MM-DD]
- **Confidence**: [high / medium / low]

Notes

  • Earnings revision data requires real-time consensus feeds (Bloomberg, Refinitiv) for professional-grade signals; yfinance provides historical actuals but not real-time consensus
  • PEAD is strongest in the first 30 days post-announcement; signal decays significantly after 60 days
  • Guidance withdrawals are almost always negative — companies rarely withdraw guidance when business is going well
  • Beware of "beat and lower" — beating current quarter but lowering forward guidance is often net negative
  • This framework is for research purposes only and does not constitute investment advice

© HKUDS, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

Just SKILL.md in agent/src/skills/earnings-revision of HKUDS/Vibe-Trading.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 8e43007

Compare with similar skills

Earnings Revisions and Guidance next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Earnings Revisions and Guidance compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Earnings Revisions and Guidance this skillHKUDS/Vibe-Trading35k—~2.5kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
AI-Trader Market IntelHKUDS/AI-Trader23k—~1.1kAutomated safety check: PassNone
Stock Deep Analysis Workflowwbh604/UZI-Skill7.1k—~9.1kAutomated safety check: NotesMIT
Zhengxi Fund Manager Views Librarylyra81604/zhengxi-views1.8k—~1.6kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Supply Chain Bottleneck Hunterxbtlin/ai-berkshire17k—~2.6kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Deep Company Article Seriesxbtlin/ai-berkshire17k—~2kAutomated safety check: PassMIT

Similar skills

  • AI-Trader Market Intel

    HKUDS/AI-Trader

    Reads AI-Trader's read-only market snapshots, grouped financial news and events board through its market-intel endpoints, for context before trading or posting.

    23k GitHub stars~1.1k tokensUpdated 4 mo ago
    Business, Finance & HRAuto-check passed
  • Runs a staged deep analysis of a single stock on China A-share, Hong Kong and US markets, ending in an HTML report with valuation models and investor-panel scores.

    7.1k GitHub stars~9.1k tokensUpdated 1 mo ago
    Business, Finance & HRAuto-check: notes
  • Zhengxi Fund Manager Views Library

    lyra81604/zhengxi-views

    Answers questions with sourced quotes from one Chinese fund manager's public writings, applies his stated investment method and compares his words with real fund holdings.

    1.8k GitHub stars~1.6k tokensUpdated 1 mo ago
    Business, Finance & HRAuto-check passed
  • Scans a long-running industry trend for supply chain chokepoints, aiming to find second- and third-layer suppliers that the market has not yet priced in.

    17k GitHub stars~2.6k tokensUpdated 2 days ago
    Business, Finance & HRAuto-check passed
  • Deep Company Article Series

    xbtlin/ai-berkshire

    Plans and writes a three-to-eight-part long-form article series that breaks down one company, built on fact-checked financials, valuation and management analysis.

    17k GitHub stars~2k tokensUpdated 2 days ago
    Business, Finance & HRAuto-check passed
  • Longbridge Earnings

    helsome/folio

    Earnings analysis — pre- and post-earnings. An agent skill from helsome/folio.

    271 GitHub starsUsed in 1 repo~2.5k tokens
    Business, Finance & HRAuto-check passed

More from HKUDS/Vibe-Trading

All 89 skills in this repo
  • Eastmoney Market Data

    HKUDS/Vibe-Trading

    Index of Eastmoney's free, no-token market data interfaces for China A-shares and Hong Kong stocks: fund flows, dragon-tiger lists, margin trading, reports and news.

    35k GitHub stars~1k tokensUpdated today
    Auto-check passed
  • OKX Market Data

    HKUDS/Vibe-Trading

    Retrieves public OKX cryptocurrency market data such as spot prices, candlesticks, funding rates and open interest through the OKX V5 REST API, with no authentication.

    35k GitHub stars~1.3k tokensUpdated today
    Auto-check passed
  • SEC EDGAR Filings Fetcher

    HKUDS/Vibe-Trading

    Fetches U.S. SEC EDGAR data: resolves tickers to CIK numbers, lists recent 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K filings with document URLs, and pulls XBRL financial series.

    35k GitHub stars~1.4k tokensUpdated today
    Auto-check passed
  • A-Share ST Risk Screener

    HKUDS/Vibe-Trading

    Predicts whether a mainland China A-share company risks an ST or *ST warning after its next annual report, using financial thresholds and Sina penalty records.

    35k GitHub stars~4.9k tokensUpdated today
    Auto-check passed
  • Breaks a structural trend such as AI infrastructure into its physical supply chain and ranks lesser-known listed companies sitting on each bottleneck.

    35k GitHub stars~2.7k tokensUpdated today
    Auto-check passed
  • Plans and drafts an eight-part, roughly 120k-word investigative series on one company, built around a strict fact-check pass rather than fast drafting.

    35k GitHub stars~2.4k tokensUpdated today
    Auto-check passed

Questions about Earnings Revisions and Guidance

What does Earnings Revisions and Guidance do?

Tracks analyst estimate revisions, earnings surprises, management guidance and post-earnings drift for US and Hong Kong stocks, and turns them into long and short signals. The skill treats earnings revisions as a persistent alpha factor: stocks with upward estimate changes tend to keep outperforming, and the reverse holds for downward ones. It ranks signal types from the earnings surprise and consensus revision breadth to estimate size changes, guidance revisions and whisper-number misses, listing for each how long the effect is said to last.

When should I use Earnings Revisions and Guidance?

Earnings Revisions and Guidance fits situations like: scoring an earnings surprise against analyst consensus; measuring revision breadth and estimate dispersion for a stock; setting up a post-earnings drift trade by surprise quintile; assessing the effect of a management guidance change.

How do I install Earnings Revisions and Guidance in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add HKUDS/Vibe-Trading --skill earnings-revision -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (agent/src/skills/earnings-revision in HKUDS/Vibe-Trading) into .claude/skills/earnings-revision in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Earnings Revisions and Guidance in Codex?

Run `npx skills add HKUDS/Vibe-Trading --skill earnings-revision -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (agent/src/skills/earnings-revision in HKUDS/Vibe-Trading) into .agents/skills/earnings-revision in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Earnings Revisions and Guidance in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add HKUDS/Vibe-Trading --skill earnings-revision -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/earnings-revision, .gemini/skills/earnings-revision, .github/skills/earnings-revision and .opencode/skills/earnings-revision in your project.

What does Earnings Revisions and Guidance need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Earnings Revisions and Guidance is instructions for the agent only.

Does Earnings Revisions and Guidance access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Earnings Revisions and Guidance safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Earnings Revisions and Guidance use?

Earnings Revisions and Guidance is published under the MIT licence (the repository's licence). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Earnings Revisions and Guidance use?

About 2.5k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 10k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full.

What are the alternatives to Earnings Revisions and Guidance?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Earnings Revisions and Guidance: AI-Trader Market Intel (HKUDS/AI-Trader, 23k stars), Stock Deep Analysis Workflow (wbh604/UZI-Skill, 7.1k stars), Zhengxi Fund Manager Views Library (lyra81604/zhengxi-views, 1.8k stars) and Supply Chain Bottleneck Hunter (xbtlin/ai-berkshire, 17k stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Earnings Revisions and Guidance?

HKUDS (a GitHub organization) maintains it in HKUDS/Vibe-Trading, which has 35,163 GitHub stars. The repository holds 89 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on October 10, 2026.

Source: HKUDS/Vibe-Trading on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.