I had two people today tell me that they placed an option trade and didn't realized that their trade falls under a period of earnings. Here are things you NEED TO DO BEFORE trading options:

• Always check the earnings date of a stock
• Always check multiple sources for earnings as I can guarantee you that ALL sources make mistakes on the dates.
• Always expand your platform to show you the Implied volatility chart in the option chain. Here is an American express example who report today: notice the spike in the April option Implied Volatility then goes back down to normal levels. So when I am lining a trade up I can quickly get an idea where the earnings fall. DON'T depend on this as the only way... always do steps 1 and 2 listed here.