Glossary
Earnings Report
A company's quarterly public account of what it earned and spent, filed with regulators and released on a set date.
Four times a year, every public company has to open its books. The earnings report is that disclosure: revenue, profit, costs, and usually some commentary from management about what happened and what they expect. It is the single densest source of fact about a company, and it is free to read.
Most reports are followed by an earnings call, where executives take questions from analysts. The call is often more revealing than the document, because the questions are not scripted and the answers are given live.
The share price reaction is frequently about the gap between the result and what people had already assumed. A company can report record profit and see its shares fall, because the profit was smaller than the market had priced in. This is why the phrase beat expectations describes a comparison with a forecast rather than with the previous year.
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Lesson 6: Stock Research for BeginnersNew to investing? Here's where to start your stock research, which metrics matter most, and mistakes to avoid.
Related terms
- EPS (Earnings Per Share)A company's profit divided by the number of shares it has, so profit is expressed per slice of ownership.
- RevenueAll the money a company brought in from selling its products and services, before any costs are subtracted.
- Net IncomeWhat is left of revenue after every expense, interest payment, and tax has been subtracted: the bottom line.
- Analyst RatingA professional stock researcher's published opinion on a company, usually summarized as Buy, Hold, or Sell.
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