- Market-moving information surfaces between earnings events, reshaping expectations before quarterly reporting cycles
- Interim data updates offer early insight into demand, production, and profitability across key industries
- Monitoring interim events helps investors anticipate volatility, refine forecasts, and manage portfolio risk
Macroeconomic volatility feels like it has been ratcheted up a few notches in recent years. Stock prices, interest rates, commodity trends, and currency pairs turn on a dime, while official economic data is harder to collect and interpret. Increasingly, company-specific fundamental data is sought after for breadcrumbs on the broader backdrop.
Wall Street Horizon’s industry-leading interim data calendar helps portfolio managers, institutional investors, and traders map what’s happening at the firm level to the global economy.
Dig Deeper with Interim Data
But what is interim data? It’s company-released performance information shared between regular earnings reports. More plainly, interim data is official, scheduled updates that give investors a peek at how a company is doing before the next quarterly or semi-annual earnings release.
What Counts as Interim Data?
Interim data typically includes:
- Intra-period financial statements (common outside North America)
- Sales updates (monthly or quarterly)
- Production figures (e.g., autos produced, tons mined, barrels pumped)
- Operating metrics (passenger volumes, same-store sales, service levels)
- Pre-earnings trading updates or performance snapshots
These releases are company-initiated, time-bound, scheduled, and quantitative-heavy. Impactful enough to move single stocks and industry indexes, there’s less CEO “fluff” with interim data. It can be ideal for money managers and analysts preferring hard facts, not soft narratives.
Going Beyond Earnings Reports
Quarterly updates from U.S.-based multinational corporations come in fast and furious beginning in the middle of January, April, July, and October. International firms, by contrast, commonly post revenue and profit numbers semi-annually. This cadence is helpful from a scheduling perspective—knowing when volatility may come about—but it naturally results in gaps on the calendar.
Interim data fills the void. Distanced from earnings season, periodic fundamental updates (often monthly) allow for more time to digest the data and interpret what it means at the micro and macro scale.
Taiwan Semiconductor: Eyeing Interim Data for Tells on the AI Trade
For instance, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM) releases a revenue report normally on the 10th of each month. Some pundits assert that the world’s most valuable publicly traded non-U.S. company is the most crucial to the modern financial market. The chipmaker’s market cap is near $1.5 trillion, and eyes are constantly on tensions between Taiwan and China. Investors can play the geopolitical guessing game all they want, but perhaps the better tack is to analyze actual sales trends—imagine that!
As of early 2025, TSM appears to be firing on all cylinders. Unfortunately, shareholders and market participants with ties to the AI trade and semiconductors will have to wait until mid-April for its next quarterly earnings report. Savvy investors tracking interim data have the upper hand—TSM’s January and February monthly revenue reports will offer first glimpses of what the Street will uncover months down the road.
TSM’s January 2026 revenue report hits on February 10, with the following update confirmed for March 10.
Tesla: Quarterly First-Takes
From the most valuable non-U.S. company to the world’s richest person, Elon Musk’s Tesla (TSLA) stands out as the most volatile stock in the Magnificent Seven. Leading into earnings events over the last few years, options pricing has averaged about an 8% implied share price swing. From 2023 to 2025, the mean actual move was 9.7%, with a range of -12% to +22%. With volatile stocks, having the most up-to-date data is critical to managing risk.
Tesla reports production and delivery figures within days of quarter-end, making it an ideal time to closely parse the numbers (as earnings season on Wall Street heats up just two weeks thereafter). What’s more, the EV maker’s full quarterly report is published about three weeks after the interim data. What Musk and other executives detail on the earnings conference call often stems directly from the interim data.
Tesla issues Q4 2025 earnings after market today, Wednesday, January 28, while the Q1 2026 event is slated for Tuesday, April 21. The next set of interim data should cross the wires on Thursday, April 2. Ahead of tonight’s main event, the options market prices in an unusually low 5.8% earnings-related stock price swing based on the at-the-money straddle expiring soonest after the Q4 report, according to data from Option Research & Technology Services.
Of course, monthly interim production data from the likes of Ford (F), General Motors (GM), and European and Asian automakers provide more pure-play vehicle reads, which help with gauging the cyclical slice of the global economy.
Costco: Consumer Clues & the K-Shaped Economy
Finally, consumer trends can shift quickly. Yes, the monthly Retail Sales report put out by the U.S. Census Bureau is somewhat timely and broad-based. About two weeks before its release, though, Costco (COST) produces its monthly same-store sales report. When the numbers drop (usually on the first Wednesday or Thursday afternoon after the first of the month), the Consumer Staples sector pays attention.
Right now, the “K-shaped” economy is all the buzz. Costco’s interim data homes in on the upper dash of the K, given its middle- to high-income customer base. Recent reports have been mixed, suggesting that there could be shifts in the overall K.
We’ll find out more on February 4, March 5, and April 8.
The Bottom Line
Interim data gives investors an early signal on company performance before official earnings are released, often reshaping expectations and driving market volatility. Because these updates occur on a known schedule, they offer an opportunity to anticipate risk, refine forecasts, and position portfolios ahead of other price-moving events.
In a market where timing and information edge matter, interim announcements can be just as influential as earnings themselves.
Twitter: @ChristineLShort
The author may hold positions in mentioned securities. Any opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author, and do not in any way represent the views or opinions of any other person or entity.
