Why Is Netflix Reporting Earnings on the Same Day as Apple?

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Apple (AAPL) and Netflix (NFLX) both plan to report quarterly earnings after the market close on Tuesday, July 24.

That has not happened for the last 10 quarters at least. Generally, the two closely followed companies report anywhere from one to eight days apart. In the last two reporting periods, Apple and Netflix released their respective results on back-to-back days.

Apple announced its earnings date for the quarter just past (its fiscal Q3) on July 2. Netflix notified the world of its intent to report earnings (its fiscal Q2) with a press release on July 3.

On the 24th, no other high-profile names in the broad tech/Internet/new media space report earnings. A few middle-of-the-road companies -- Juniper Networks (JNPR), Riverbed Technology (RVBD) and TripAdvisor (TRIP) -- come in after the close.

Call me cynical, conspiratorial and crazy, but it's perfectly sane and logical to wonder if there's at least a remote possibility that Netflix decided to go on the same day as Apple because it's about to report a weak quarter. If you ran a public company and wanted your news to play second fiddle, what would you do? Having the summer intern fax your earnings press release to analysts and the media at the same time Apple's comes through certainly cannot hurt.

To be fair, Netflix scheduled its conference call for 6 p.m., Eastern Time, while Apple discusses its quarter with analysts beginning at 5 p.m., eastern. But, really, who listens to conference calls anyway? A gaggle of analysts, a small segment of the financial media and a handful of really astute (or geeky) shareholders.

I would never short the stock or buy a put ahead of a Netflix earnings report. I refrain from the practice with most stocks with few exceptions. Netflix never qualifies as an exception. It can trot out a dog-and-pony show like no other company and turn lemons into lemonade. In other words, Reed Hastings can use smoke and mirrors like no other CEO in the business.

Especially now, with all of the uncertainty, it's even more difficult to read Netflix.

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