Earnings season

Consensus estimate

The average of analyst forecasts for a company's revenue, earnings and other metrics; the benchmark a result is judged against.

Earnings beat

Reported results above consensus estimates, which is the normal outcome rather than a surprise, because expectations are usually managed downward first.

Earnings miss

Reported results below consensus estimates; rarer than a beat and usually punished harder, because it breaks the assumption that management controls the outcome.

Estimate revision

Analysts changing their forecasts after new information; the direction and breadth of revisions often matters more than the level of the estimate.

Forward price-to-earnings

Share price divided by expected earnings per share for the next twelve months or the next fiscal year; the multiple the market actually trades on.

Guidance cut

Management lowering its own forecast, which markets treat as more serious than a miss because it extends the problem into future periods.

Guidance raise

Management increasing its own forecast for the current quarter or year, the single most reliably positive event in an earnings release.

Non-GAAP measures

Company-defined profit figures that exclude items management considers unrepresentative, always presented alongside a required reconciliation to audited results.

Pre-announcement

A company releasing results or revised expectations ahead of the scheduled date, almost always because the deviation from guidance is too large to hold back.

Quiet period

The stretch before results when a company stops commenting on current trading, typically running from a few weeks after quarter end until the release.

Whisper number

The unpublished expectation investors actually hold, usually above published consensus, against which the share price reaction is really measured.

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