First: expectations, not results
Prices move on results relative to what was expected, which is why great numbers can fall (priced for perfection) and awful ones can rally (feared worse). Before judging any reaction, know roughly what the market expected: the analyst consensus for revenue and earnings, which SteadyShares shows on each stock's analyst tab.
The twenty-minute reading order
One: revenue against the same quarter last year, and against consensus. Growth is the pulse. Two: margins, is profitability holding as revenue moves? Three: cash flow, did the profit arrive as money? Four: guidance, what management now expects next, which usually moves the price more than the quarter itself. Five: the share count, quietly rising dilution is a tax on your ownership.
Read the numbers before the CEO's letter. The letter is written to frame the numbers; reading it first is letting the defendant open the trial.
Adjusted versus statutory, the honesty gap
Companies love an adjusted profit: statutory earnings with the embarrassing bits (restructuring, write-downs, stock compensation) declared one-off and removed. Adjustments can be legitimate; a company that finds new one-offs every single quarter is telling you something. The gap between statutory and adjusted, tracked over years, is one of the better integrity meters in investing.
The same skepticism applies to a new favourite metric appearing exactly when the old ones went bad. When a report leads with a measure you have never heard of, ask what it replaced.
What deserves your reaction
A quarter is thirteen weeks of a business you bought for a decade. React to broken theses (the moat leaking, cash conversion failing, guidance resetting the future), not to a penny of earnings noise either side of consensus. If nothing structural changed, the correct response to most earnings reports is to finish your coffee.