This INTU trade review breaks down a post-earnings momentum short setup that followed a roughly 13% one-hour selloff after Intuit reported $12.80 EPS on $8.56 billion in revenue. In this review, you’ll learn why the stock sold off despite strong earnings, how a multi-timeframe break of support created a high-probability continuation setup, and why position sizing mistakes nearly overshadowed an otherwise successful trade.
Intuit reported earnings of $12.80 per share on revenue of $8.56 billion for the fiscal third quarter ended April 2026.
The consensus earnings estimate was $12.52 per share on revenue of $8.52 billion. The company ultimately showed that it beat expectations by 0.31%, while revenue grew 10.37% year-over-year.
The company also issued relatively strong forward guidance.
Intuit expects fourth quarter non-GAAP earnings of $3.56 to $3.62 per share on revenue of $4.25 billion to $4.29 billion. Current consensus estimates were just $3.20 EPS on $4.13 billion in revenue.
On paper, these were objectively solid earnings numbers. Revenue grew double digits, earnings beat expectations, and forward guidance came in ahead of consensus.
So why did the stock collapse?
The answer appears to come down to future expectations and weakening sentiment around TurboTax growth.
Management reportedly lowered its full-year TurboTax revenue outlook while also acknowledging weaker-than-expected IRS filing trends. Investors also reacted negatively to concerns surrounding AI disruption risk within the tax preparation industry, especially as large language models increasingly threaten traditional software guidance businesses.
Additionally, the company announced a 17% workforce reduction, which the market likely interpreted as a sign management sees structural pressure ahead rather than purely operational optimization.
As a result, the market completely ignored the backward-looking earnings beat and instead focused on concerns surrounding future growth durability.
And from a price action perspective, that weakness created an extremely compelling post-earnings momentum setup.
The Technical Setup
What made this chart particularly interesting was the sheer amount of multi-timeframe confluence breaking simultaneously.
The initial one-hour earnings candle broke:
- Hourly support
- 4-hour support
- And closed almost precisely at major daily support
That type of multi-timeframe break of structure is exactly what I look for when trading post-earnings momentum.
The stock dropped roughly 13% during the first hour after earnings were released, confirming both abnormal volatility and aggressive institutional selling pressure.
Even though the underlying earnings numbers were technically bullish, the chart itself was overwhelmingly bearish. And in many cases, price action matters more than fundamentals in the short term.
This setup aligned almost perfectly with the type of post-earnings continuation pattern I’ve been researching extensively:
- Strong earnings reaction
- Abnormal volume
- Large first-hour directional move
- Multi-timeframe support break
- Momentum continuation thesis
Ultimately, my ideal entry signal occurred at the close of the earnings hourly candle, which would have resulted in a short entry around $336 per share.
The Initial Entry Was Correct
Initially, I executed the trade properly. I entered short with just 3 shares after the close of the hourly candle. Both the timing and the position size followed my predetermined risk parameters.
That part of the trade was objectively good execution.
Had I simply held that position and followed my system rules, the outcome would have been straightforward:
- 3–5% stop loss
- 9–10% profit target
- Let the setup play out
And importantly, the next day’s trading session ultimately hit that 9–10% continuation target. So I would have made roughly $100 dollar on a single trade in less than 24 hours.
My original trade thesis worked. So why do I still consider this a bad trade?
Where I Failed
Unfortunately, I didn’t stick to the original plan. Ironically, I still made a large profit on this trade — but I did so through aggressive oversizing rather than disciplined execution.
During the pre-market session the following morning, I sized up aggressively mostly out of boredom and emotional excitement surrounding the setup.
The trade was still acting well technically:
- Follow-through remained strong
- Price had not reclaimed my EMAs
- Momentum remained bearish
- There was no technical reason to interfere with the position
But one of the biggest issues I continue to struggle with is resisting the urge to oversize on trades that “feel” exceptionally high probability. And on this INTU setup, I failed completely.
It is true that traders can and should size up responsibly when the market gives them an A+ setup and confirmation. But instead of simply adding modestly, I added another 23 shares, bringing my total position size to 26 shares with roughly $8,500 in exposure.
That is approximately 8.5x larger than the maximum capital allocation I should ever risk on a single trade.
So despite the profitability of the trade itself, the execution was still poor from a process standpoint.
Because good trading is not just about making money. It is about:
- controlling downside risk
- maintaining emotional consistency
- preserving long-term survivability
- and executing systematically across large sample sizes
On that basis alone, this trade was not properly executed.
Final Takeaway
Despite the execution mistakes, this trade review still reinforces something important:
My post-earnings momentum strategy continues to show strong signs of viability.
Even though the earnings themselves were fundamentally solid, the market clearly interpreted the report bearishly. The stock immediately broke multiple major support levels simultaneously, and momentum continued aggressively lower afterward.
Most importantly, the original system entry worked almost perfectly.
The issue was never the strategy itself. The issue here was simply position sizing discipline.
And increasingly, I believe position sizing — not trade selection — remains the single biggest factor separating profitable trading systems from destructive trading behavior.
If you want to go deeper:
- Explore the Trading Statistics Hub to understand how different sectors behave across market cycles
- Study real setups inside the Trade Reviews section
- Learn the framework behind high-probability setups in the Post-Earnings Momentum Strategy
This is how you turn raw market data into repeatable trading edge.
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