5 Most Volatile Earnings Stocks

Fourth-quarter earnings season is set to kick off with Alcoa, Inc. AA reporting Jan. 16. A volatile Q4 for stocks will likely lead to another volatile earnings season for traders, but some stocks have a reputation of making even bigger earnings moves than others.

Since the beginning of last earnings season, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY is down 11.1 percent, while the BRCL BK IPTH S&P 500 VIX SH FTRS ETN VXX has surged 48.9 percent in that time.

Short-term traders are often on the hunt for big earnings movers, while long-term investors may want to avoid them.

Each quarter, Bespoke Investment Group compiles a list of the biggest earnings movers in the U.S. market. The Bespoke screen includes only stocks with share prices above $5 and at least 10 quarters of public reporting in the company's database.

Here’s a look at the five most volatile earnings stocks along with their average moves on the day following an earnings release, according to Bespoke.

Bespoke's Top 5

• Container Store Group Inc TCS: 16.8 percent.
• Yelp Inc YELP: 15.3 percent.
• NeoPhotonics Corp NPTN: 14.6 percent.
• Infinera Corp. INFN: 14.6 percent.
• Nuverra Environmental Solutions Inc NES

For traders looking for volatility this earnings season, here are the expected reporting dates of the five stocks above:

• Container Store: Feb 2, after the close (unconfirmed)
• Yelp: Feb 6, after the close (unconfirmed)
• NeoPhotonics: Feb 28, after the close (unconfirmed)
• Infinera: Feb 6, after the close (unconfirmed)
• Nuverra: March 3, after the close (unconfirmed)

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