 How much of a stock's movement can be attributed to the movements in the index in which it resides? And if a stock moves in line with an index, or an academic language has a high R squared, what exactly accounts for that? Industry members and academics have numerous theories. The authors of a new paper tackle the question of synchronicity using earnings season in China, when the information on companies is more robust. They also consider newer companies versus older ones. Earning season is an information-rich environment when companies report on their profits. In contrast, there is less information available during non-earning season. The authors found that in China, synchronicity between stocks and their indexes is reduced during earnings season. In older companies, they found this trend to be even stronger. These findings challenge the assumption that synchronicity is generally stronger in emerging markets than in developed markets. Synchronicity may also give investors a slight advantage in anticipating certain trends. For active investors, earnings season would be a better time to make a judgment call on a stock to take a position, bullish or bearish, and not have it muted by the whims of the overall market. Conversely, for passive investors, the time to rebalance would be during the non-earning season, when high synchronicity in the Chinese stock market makes for a safer bet. Different times of year present different opportunities for investors in the Chinese stock market and possibly other emerging markets. So regardless of their strategy, investors would do well to stay tuned to the information environment of earnings and non-earning seasons.