Earnings for Yamana Gold, Inc. (NYSE: AUY) are due Wednesday. If past history is any indication, the market's reaction – no matter what the number – is bound to be significant.

Why? Well, first of all, Yamana's earnings have a tendency to surprise analysts. Three of the last four earnings releases were double digits away, percentagewise, from the consensus forecast. To the upside and the downside. Net the last year's earnings surprises and what do you get? Eighteen percent. Negative 18 percent.

Is that the kind of surprise we're likely to see Wednesday? Can't say for certain. The consensus call is for 4 cents a share. The guesstimate, however, has ratcheted downward some 42% over the last quarter.

The other factor militating for a sizable reaction is Yamana's inherent volatility. The stock's price history over the past 12 months looks like the brain wave pattern of a patient undergoing shock treatment. Yamana's standard deviation is a head-splitting 91.9%. Not that the other gold miners' shares don't gyrate and wobble. The Market Vectors AMEX Gold Miners ETF (NYSE Arca: GDX), which tracks an index of three dozen mining companies including Yamana, cranked out a 77.5% volatility over the last 12 months.

Yamana Gold, Inc. (AUY) Performance

Still, Yamana is highly correlated to GDX's underlying index. The r-squared (r2) value to GDX is 84.2%, meaning more than four-fifths of Yamana's price action can be traced to movements in the broader benchmark.

So, keep your eye peeled. To get a better bead on how sentiment is lining up, watch for changes in the open interest and volume of the Yamana March $7 puts and the March $9 calls. Spikes in one or the other would indicate traders' expectations of the surprise direction.