How Will Marathon Petroleum Stock React To Its Upcoming Earnings?

Marathon Petroleum (NYSE:MPC) is set to report its earnings on Tuesday, May 5, 2026. The company has $74 Bil in current market capitalization. Revenue over the last twelve months was $133 Bil, and it was operationally profitable with $5.8 Bil in operating profits and net income of $4.0 Bil. While the post-earnings stock reaction will depend on how the results and outlook stack up against investor expectations, a detailed look at historical results can aid you if you are an event-driven trader.

Here is how: either understand the historical odds and position yourself prior to the earnings announcement, or look at the correlation between immediate and medium-term returns post earnings and enter a trade one day after the announcement.

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Trefis: MPC Stock Insights

Marathon Petroleum’s Historical Odds Of Positive Post-Earnings Return

Some observations on one-day (1D) post-earnings returns:

There are 20 earnings data points recorded over the last five years, with 14 positive and 6 negative one-day (1D) returns observed. In summary, positive 1D returns were seen about 70% of the time.
Notably, this percentage increases to 75% if we consider data for the last 3 years instead of 5.
Median of the 14 positive returns = 3.8%, and median of the 6 negative returns = -4.2%

Additional data for observed 5-Day (5D) and 21-Day (21D) returns post earnings are summarized along with the statistics in the table below.

Correlation Between 1D, 5D and 21D Historical Returns

A relatively less risky strategy (though not useful if the correlation is low) is to understand the correlation between short-term and medium-term returns post earnings, find a pair that has the highest correlation, and execute the appropriate trade. For example, if 1D and 5D show the highest correlation, a trader can position themselves “long” for the next 5 days if the 1D post-earnings return is positive. Here is some correlation data based on a 5-year and a 3-year (more recent) history. Note that the correlation 1D_5D refers to the correlation between 1D post-earnings returns and subsequent 5D returns.

Is There Any Correlation With Peer Earnings?

Sometimes, peer performance can have an influence on post-earnings stock reaction. In fact, the pricing-in might begin before the earnings are announced. Here is some historical data on the past post-earnings performance of Marathon Petroleum stock compared with the stock performance of peers that reported earnings just before Marathon Petroleum. For fair comparison, peer stock returns also represent post-earnings one-day (1D) returns.

   * N/A indicates that the peer reported earnings after MPC

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