What is MJSD

MJSD is an acronym representing the months March, June, September and December. Each is the final month of its respective financial reporting quarter for earnings, payment of dividends, interest and the expiration of certain financial derivative contracts, including futures and options.

BREAKING DOWN MJSD

While MJSD represents the most important reporting months, other combinations are equally as valid. Both JAJO (January, April, July and October) and FMAN (February, May, August and November) are in use but the vast majority of domestic companies use the MJSD reporting cycle.

All public companies in the United States must file quarterly reports (known as 10-Q reports) with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Each 10-Q contains the public company's unaudited financial statements and information about the company's operations for the previous three months (quarter).  The SEC requires companies to file 10-Qs following each of the first three quarters of the year and an annual report, known as a 10-K, which includes all of the quarters, to be filed after the end of the year.

In general, each earnings season begins one or two weeks after the last month of each quarter. In other words, look for the majority of public companies to release their earnings in early to middle parts of January, April, July and October. It is important to note that not all companies report during earnings season because the exact date of an earnings release depends on when the given company's quarter ends. As such, it is not uncommon to find companies reporting earnings between earnings seasons.

Financial Derivatives

Investors and traders known the MJSD series well as many options and futures, especially indexes, interest rates and currencies, expire during these months. However, not all futures have such a regular quarterly expiration. Agricultural futures contracts may follow a harvest cycle rather than a financial reporting cycle. Energy futures, including crude oil, have monthly expirations all year long.

The symbols for these expirations does not match the MJSD letters, largely due to the fact that several months start with the same letter. Therefore, the expiration month codes are as follows:

  • F - January
  • G - February
  • H - March
  • J - April
  • K - May
  • M - June
  • N - July
  • Q - August
  • U - September
  • V - October
  • X - November
  • Z - December

Therefore, the March 2019 Standard & Poor's futures contract symbol would be SPH9 or SP H9. The specifics may vary from data vendor to data vendor.