I have made it a rule for myself that I need to listen to every earnings call for stocks that I own and take notes during the call. This includes listening to the entire Q&A section of calls which is often longer than the prepared remarks.
Because of note taking, I never listen to the calls live, and want the ability to pause in the call so I can digest what they are saying, or be able to rewind certain parts.
Also, for a stock that I am thinking to buy into I have a rule that I must listen to their previous earnings call before buying in as well.
After doing this I’ve discovered that I feel way more comfortable holding a small portfolio of stocks and do not need to diversify as much. The familiarity itself helps me be more calm during the swings.
Looking back I owned stocks for years where I only looked at the numbers reported for earnings and decided if they were doing well based on market reactions. In many cases I sold or bought stocks for the wrong reasons.
There’s also quite a wide variety of earnings calls and different leadership styles. In some cases the CEO is the star of the show like with Facebook, or with Shopify their CEO does not do any prepared remarks and the CFO is the more important speaker.