- Don's Trading Desk
- Posts
- The 'Earnings Flip' Strategy Institutions Don't Want You to Know About
The 'Earnings Flip' Strategy Institutions Don't Want You to Know About
How I Cracked the Code on Earnings Trades (And How You Can Too)

Don Kaufman here.
Three weeks after graduating college, I found myself on the chaotic trading floor of the Chicago Board Options Exchange.
Six weeks later, I was navigating one of the most volatile markets in history, with the VIX hitting 40 during the Long-Term Capital Management collapse.
But here's what really changed my perspective on trading forever...
After helping build thinkorswim from the ground up and eventually selling to TD Ameritrade…
I had unprecedented access to something most traders never see:
The complete trading patterns of hundreds of thousands of retail investors.
I built and ran education for both firms and, more importantly, had access to the largest retail order flow in the industry.
Watching order flow meant I had access to everything traders were doing. We studied billions in trades, analyzing exactly what separated the winners from the losers.
What I discovered about trading during earnings seasons shocked me...
Most traders believe that earnings are too scary, too volatile, or too unpredictable to trade successfully.
They've been told to wait until after earnings or to avoid trading altogether during these times.
These predictable price movements around earnings have created opportunities that most retail traders completely miss.
What if you could know days, weeks, or even months in advance exactly when you're going to take a trade?
Not only that, but what if the timing and the option setup were like clockwork?
There's a specific way to play these "earnings flips" that institutional traders have kept quiet about for years.
I don't care if the earnings are good or bad, or how the market reacts—no one can predict that anyway.
I don't need to know what the institutions are expecting.
I just follow my earnings flip criteria to know which earnings are opportunities and which ones are traps.
After leaving TD Ameritrade in 2015, I made it my mission to bring institutional-level trading insights to everyday traders.
That's why I founded TheoTrade, and why I'm now pulling back the curtain on one of the most reliable patterns I've observed across decades of earnings seasons.
Want to see exactly how these "earnings flips" work?
To your success,
Don Kaufman