While much of the news surrounding earnings reports focuses on how much a company earns, the real test of how good or bad the report is depends on how the stock reacts.  For those interested, below we highlight the percentage of up days on the first trading day following an earnings announcement for the 30 Dow stocks since 2001.  For companies reporting in the morning, we use that day's trading.  For companies reporting after the close, we use the following day's move.

As shown, Boeing (BA) has generated positive one-day returns following earnings two-thirds of the time since 2001.  This is the most positive price reaction of any of the 30 Dow stocks.  BA is followed by UTX, T, IBM and MRK.  On the other hand, GM has only gone up 25% of the time following earnings reports.  Other Dow stocks that are generally weak in response to earnings are MCD, PFE, AA and XOM.

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