When pair trading you don't want to hold positions going into earnings date or dividend dates. You can use pages like this http://biz.yahoo.com/research/earncal/today.html? to check for upcoming earnings dates, and if a stock in a pair has earnings due out within two weeks of the trading signal you shouldn't take the trade. The best pair trades come when there is no news affecting the stocks and there isn't any earnings or dividends due out within 2 weeks.