Earnings

MSFT and IBM report earnings at the closing bell today. Both stocks saw strong days yesterday with MSFT up close to 4%. I won't be getting into either of these but I do often notice this run up of the price shortly before earnings announcements. To me it doesn't change the liklihood of beating annalyst expectations which means that you have more to gain from a short positition due to the temporary run up. It seems that the change in price is due to people hoping to gain from strong earnings reports.

IBM is up 17% already this year and I doubt there is a huge upside left but with such a strong company I don't like shorts either.