In this article, you’ll learn which five post-earnings momentum setups produced the largest MFEs during summer 2026, how their first-hour earnings reactions compared, and what made each trade unique. We’ll look at ANF, PENG, CRDO, PLTR, and AAP, compare their MFE and MAE, technical breakouts, earnings results, guidance, and short interest, and pull out the biggest lessons about what actually drives strong post-earnings continuation.
Some of the biggest post-earnings momentum trades of summer 2026 didn’t start with enormous earnings gaps.
In fact, after reviewing the case studies I tracked throughout the summer, the five setups with the largest maximum favorable excursions all began with first-hour moves of less than 13%.
That’s interesting.
The biggest winner, Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF), gained just 7.05% during its first hourly earnings candle before eventually producing another +30.13% maximum favorable excursion (MFE).
At the other end of the top five, Advance Auto Parts (AAP) fell 12.49% during its first hour before extending another 12.16% in favor of a short position.
Together, these five trades produced an average MFE of 19.20% from the close of the first hourly earnings candle.
Even more interesting, they didn’t all look alike.
Some had outstanding earnings. Some had mixed fundamentals. Some had favorable forward guidance. Some produced clean multi-timeframe breakouts. Others barely made a big move at all, but then continued on to produce exceptionally large MFEs.
Here are the five strongest post-earnings momentum setups I tracked during summer 2026 and what each one taught me.
Quick Answer: Which stocks have the most upward momentum?
Stocks often experience some of their largest momentum moves immediately after earnings, but strong earnings results alone aren’t enough to predict which stocks will keep moving or experience continued upside momentum. I track factors including EPS and revenue results versus estimates, forward guidance, short interest, first-hour price action, and technical breakouts to identify post-earnings setups with strong continuation potential. During summer 2026, ANF, PENG, and PLTR produced some of the strongest upward momentum setups I tracked, while CRDO and AAP produced similarly powerful momentum to the downside, with the five setups reaching maximum favorable excursions of 12.16% to 30.13%.
The 5 Biggest Post-Earnings Momentum Setups Summer 2026
| Rank | Stock | Direction | First-Hour Move | MFE | MAE | Technical Confirmation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | ANF | Long | +7.05% | +30.13% | 0.00% | Hourly + 4-hour breakout |
| #2 | PENG | Long | +7.50% | +18.81% | -10.26% | Hourly trendline break |
| #3 | CRDO | Short | -4.59% | +18.20% | -1.13% | No confirmed breakout |
| #4 | PLTR | Long | +12.05% | +16.68% | -2.15% | Hourly + 4-hour breakout |
| #5 | AAP | Short | -12.49% | +12.16% | -4.81% | Hourly + 4-hour + daily breakdown |
*For short trades, MFE represents the favorable percentage move lower from the close of the first hourly earnings candle.
#5 – Advance Auto Parts & Its +12.16% MFE
Advance Auto Parts (AAP) was probably the simplest setup on this list.
AAP reported adjusted EPS of $1.03 against estimates of $0.81, representing an approximately 27% beat. But revenue missed expectations, comparable-store sales declined, and the company’s revenue outlook remained relatively soft.
The market clearly didn’t care much about the EPS beat.
AAP fell 12.49% during its first hourly earnings candle, breaking support on the hourly, 4-hour and daily charts simultaneously.
That gave the short setup something none of the other four trades on this list had:
Confirmed technical breakdowns across all three major timeframes I track.
The trade wasn’t completely painless. AAP bounced after the initial decline and produced approximately -4.81% MAE, coming extremely close to my hypothetical -5% stop.
But the larger bearish structure held.
Sellers regained control and AAP eventually produced +12.16% MFE, reaching my standard +9% profit target before hitting a -5% stop.
Sometimes the chart really can be that simple.
The fundamentals were mixed, but support broke across three timeframes and the market immediately established a clear bearish direction.
#4 – Palantir Technologies & Its +16.68% MFE
If AAP was a textbook bearish breakdown, Palantir (PLTR) was almost the exact bullish equivalent.
Palantir beat EPS estimates by approximately 17.14% and revenue estimates by 7.18%, while revenue grew an enormous 92.83% year over year. Management also raised guidance across the board.
Then the chart confirmed what the earnings were already saying.
PLTR gained 12.05% during its first hourly earnings candle, produced both hourly and 4-hour breakouts, remained above my 6-9-12 EMA Cloud, and showed very little wick retracement.
Buyers simply stayed in control throughout the rest of the trading session.
And from the close of that hourly candle, PLTR produced +16.68% MFE while experiencing only -2.15% MAE.
By the following trading day’s close, the stock was still approximately 15.36% above the hourly entry level.
PLTR is what I picture when I think about fundamental-technical alignment.
Strong EPS. Strong revenue. Explosive growth. Raised guidance. Bullish price action. Confirmed breakouts.
Not every trade needs a complicated thesis. Sometimes the market gives you an outstanding earnings report and then immediately confirms that investors agree with it.
#3 – Credo Technology Group & Its +18.20% MFE
Credo Technology (CRDO) might be the weirdest setup in the top five. Fundamentally, CRDO’s earnings report looked bullish.
Revenue increased 114.7% year over year, EPS beat the estimate in my dataset by approximately 10.09%, and Q2 revenue guidance came in roughly 5.4% above consensus.
And the stock sold off anyway.
CRDO’s first hourly earnings candle fell only 4.59%, which also makes it the smallest initial reaction among these five setups.
But… It didn’t produce an hourly breakout. It didn’t produce a 4-hour breakout. And it didn’t produce a daily breakout. The fundamentals and price action didn’t even agree.
Yet sellers remained firmly in control once the hourly candle closed.
CRDO ultimately produced a massive +18.20% MFE for the short while experiencing just -1.13% MAE.
By the following day’s close, the position remained approximately 17.78% in the money.
CRDO may be the most important setup here precisely because it wasn’t textbook.
It reinforces one of the central ideas behind my post-earnings momentum strategy:
EPS, revenue and guidance help explain a company’s results, but traders ultimately have to respect what buyers and sellers are actually doing with that information.
The market said, “Cool story.”
Then it sold the stock anyway.
#2 – Penguin Solutions & Its +18.81% MFE
The stock chart case studies we’ve covered so far represent fairly clean examples of strong post-earnings momentum setups.
Penguin Solutions (PENG) is where things get messy.
Fundamentally, the setup looked excellent. PENG reported record revenue and profitability, revenue grew 47.6% year over year, and management dramatically raised full-year guidance.
The midpoint of revenue guidance increased approximately 14.8%, while non-GAAP EPS guidance increased roughly 20.9%.
The first-hour reaction was also right in the range I generally like to see. PENG gained approximately 7.5% during its first hourly earnings candle.
But unlike PLTR or ANF, it failed to produce clean higher-timeframe breakouts.
Then the stock pulled back hard…
From the first-hour entry, PENG eventually experienced approximately -10.26% MAE before turning around and exploding higher.
The original bullish thesis ultimately produced +18.81% MFE, but that number needs an enormous asterisk from a trading perspective.
I often aim for not letting trades go against my entry by more than 5%. Therefore, a rules-based trader using a -5% stop would have been gone long before the +18.81% move occurred.
The lesson here is that even A+ setups can be messy. Sometimes, they’ll still work, but traders must be prepared for volatility and large adverse reactions beforehand.
That distinction matters.
It would be easy to look backward at PENG and call it a fantastic +18.81% setup. But under the rules I was using at the time, the original entry would have been stopped out.
That doesn’t necessarily mean the thesis was wrong. It means risk management and entry timing matter.
PENG eventually demonstrated exactly what the fundamentals suggested it could do, but traders first had to survive or avoid an extremely deep pullback.
#1 – Abercrombie & Fitch and its +30.13% MFE
And then there was Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF). This thing was a rocketship.
ANF reported underlying EPS of approximately $2.42 against a $1.95 estimate, representing a 24.10% beat. Revenue also beat expectations.
But the real catalyst here was management’s guidance.
ANF raised full-year EPS guidance from $10.20-$11.00 to $13.10-$13.60. Using the midpoint of those ranges, management effectively increased its full-year earnings outlook by roughly 26%.
That’s a meaningful repricing event. After the results were announced, ANF initially gained roughly 7.05% during its first hourly earnings candle.
That first candle produced both an hourly and 4-hour breakout, while the approximately 9.3% short float potentially added another source of buying pressure as the stock accelerated.
And accelerate it did. From the close of that first hourly candle, ANF produced +30.13% MFE.
Its recorded MAE?
0.00%.
By the end of the trading day, ANF remained approximately 24.49% above the first-hour entry, and at its intraday high the stock had gained roughly 42% from the previous closing price.
A stock being up 10%, 20% or 30% doesn’t require it to reverse.
When a major catalyst forces investors to rapidly change what they believe a company is worth, the repricing process can continue much farther than intuition suggests.
ANF’s original +7.05% reaction wasn’t the move being finished.
What Did the Five Biggest Setups Have in Common?
This is where the list becomes more useful than simply looking at five big winners.
Because there actually isn’t one magic variable shared by all five. When it comes to wondering if long trades are better than short trades… well, three were bullish trades and two were bearish.
So it’s fair to say that both long and short post-earnings momentum setups can produce great trade outcomes.
But what other insights can we pull from this batch of chart case studies?
Key Insights From the 5 Biggest Post-Earnings Momentum Setups
- The biggest winners didn’t start with enormous earnings moves. None of the five setups began with a 20%+ first-hour reaction. Their average absolute first-hour move was only about 8.74%, yet they went on to produce an average 19.20% MFE.
- A strong first-hour move can be the beginning of the trade, not the end. ANF gained just 7.05% during its first earnings hour before producing another +30.13% MFE, while PENG’s initial +7.50% move eventually extended to +18.81% MFE.
- Price action sometimes matters more than the headline earnings numbers. CRDO reported strong growth and bullish guidance but still sold off, eventually producing +18.20% MFE for a short. AAP also produced a profitable bearish continuation despite a large EPS beat and raised EPS guidance.
- Fundamental and technical alignment can create exceptionally clean setups. ANF and PLTR combined strong earnings, raised guidance and bullish technical confirmation. ANF recorded approximately 0% MAE, while PLTR reached +16.68% MFE with only -2.15% MAE.
- Multi-timeframe breakouts help, but they aren’t mandatory. AAP broke hourly, 4-hour and daily support, while ANF and PLTR confirmed hourly and 4-hour breakouts. CRDO, however, produced no confirmed breakout on any of those timeframes and still delivered one of the summer’s largest MFEs.
- MFE alone doesn’t tell you whether a trade was realistically tradable. PENG eventually reached +18.81% MFE, but first experienced approximately -10.26% MAE. A trader using a -5% stop would have been stopped out well before the larger move developed.
- Four of the five setups reached +9% before moving -5% against the entry. ANF, CRDO, PLTR and AAP all reached the standard profit threshold before a hypothetical -5% stop. PENG was the lone exception.
- Post-earnings momentum works in both directions. Three of the five largest setups were bullish longs, while CRDO and AAP were profitable short setups. The edge comes from following the market’s reaction rather than assuming earnings momentum must mean buying.
Final Thoughts: Summer 2026 Produced a Hell of a Data Set
The five strongest post-earnings momentum setups I studied this summer produced MFEs ranging from 12.16% to 30.13% after the first hourly earnings candle had already closed.
That alone is a reminder of why I’m so interested in this strategy. The earnings reaction often isn’t the end of the move.
Oftentimes, it’s just the beginning.
But these five setups also show why there’s more to trading than finding stocks that eventually moved a lot.
PENG had a massive MFE but brutal MAE. CRDO broke almost none of my preferred technical rules. AAP had mixed fundamentals. ANF and PLTR looked about as clean as momentum setups can get.
That variation is exactly why I keep documenting them.
The goal isn’t to find a magical indicator that would have perfectly predicted all five trades.
The goal is to build a large enough library of real post-earnings reactions that eventually we can stop guessing about what matters and let the data tell us.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions About Post-Earnings Momentum Trading
What is post-earnings momentum trading?
Post-earnings momentum trading is a strategy that looks for stocks that continue moving in the same direction after an earnings announcement. Rather than trying to predict the initial reaction, traders wait for price action to develop and then look for signs that buyers or sellers remain in control.
Why do stocks make such large moves after earnings?
Earnings reports can force investors to rapidly change what they believe a company is worth. Surprises in EPS, revenue, growth, margins, or forward guidance can trigger aggressive buying or selling, especially when the reported results differ significantly from market expectations.
Do stocks usually continue moving after earnings?
Not always. Some stocks reverse quickly after their initial reaction, while others continue trending for hours or even multiple trading sessions. In the five setups examined here, the initial earnings reactions ranged from just 4.59% to 12.49% in absolute terms, yet eventual MFEs ranged from 12.16% to 30.13%.
What makes a strong post-earnings momentum setup?
I look at several variables rather than relying on a single indicator. These include first-hour price action, EPS and revenue results versus estimates, forward guidance, short interest, technical breakouts, wick retracement, and whether the fundamentals agree with the direction of the stock move.
Are bigger earnings gaps better for momentum trading?
Not necessarily. A huge initial move can attract attention, but it can also become more volatile and difficult to manage. In this group of five standout setups, none had a first-hour move larger than 13%, yet all eventually produced double-digit maximum favorable excursions.
Does a stock have to beat earnings to produce bullish momentum?
No. The market reacts to the entire earnings report, not simply whether EPS beat or missed estimates. Guidance, revenue growth, margins, expectations, valuation, and positioning can all influence the reaction. Likewise, a company can report apparently strong results and still sell off if investors dislike some other part of the report.
Can stocks fall after beating earnings?
Yes. CRDO and AAP are good examples from this article of stocks falling after beating earnings. Both reported positive headline earnings metrics, yet their stocks moved sharply lower after the announcements. This is one reason I give significant weight to actual price action instead of assuming the earnings numbers dictate the trade direction.
What is MFE in trading?
Maximum favorable excursion (MFE) measures the largest percentage move a trade makes in the trader’s favor after entry. For a long position, it measures the largest move higher. For a short position, it measures the largest favorable move lower.
What is MAE in trading?
Maximum adverse excursion (MAE) measures how far a trade moves against the entry before the position is closed or reaches its eventual favorable move. Tracking MAE can help traders understand how much volatility a setup typically experiences and whether a stop-loss strategy is realistic.
Is a high MFE always a good trade?
No. A large eventual MFE does not necessarily mean the trade was realistically tradable under a specific risk-management system. PENG eventually produced +18.81% MFE, but it first experienced approximately -10.26% MAE, meaning a trader using a -5% stop would likely have been stopped out before the larger rally occurred.
Are technical breakouts required for post-earnings momentum?
No. They can provide useful confirmation, but the five setups in this article show that there is no single breakout pattern required for continuation. AAP produced hourly, 4-hour, and daily breakdowns, while CRDO produced no confirmed breakout across those timeframes and still reached +18.20% MFE.
Is post-earnings momentum better for long trades or short trades?
Both directions can produce strong setups. Three of the five largest setups studied here were bullish longs, while two were bearish shorts. The more important factor is whether the market continues confirming the direction established after the earnings announcement.
How long can post-earnings momentum last?
Momentum can last anywhere from minutes to several trading sessions. Some setups trend strongly throughout the next session, while others pause, retrace, or consolidate before continuing. That is why I track both intraday MFE and what happens by the following day’s close.
When is the best time to enter a post-earnings momentum trade?
There is no universally best entry, but my research often focuses on the close of the first hourly earnings candle. Waiting for that first hour gives the market time to digest the earnings report and provides more information about whether the initial reaction is holding, reversing, or breaking important technical levels.
Can post-earnings momentum trading be profitable?
Post-earnings momentum trading can produce attractive trading opportunities, but there is no guarantee that any individual setup will be profitable. The purpose of tracking hundreds of post-earnings reactions is to identify which variables are associated with better outcomes, lower adverse excursion, and more consistent continuation rather than relying on intuition alone.
References
The Paper Trading Journal. (n.d.). Stock chart setup case studies. Retrieved September 9, 2026, from https://papertradingjournal.com/stock-chart-setup-case-studies/
The Paper Trading Journal. (n.d.). Post-earnings momentum database. Retrieved September 9, 2026, from https://papertradingjournal.com/post-earnings-momentum-database/
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