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Each stock gets a score from 1 to 10: a weighted average of five pillars, Growth (25%), Profitability (25%), Financial health (20%), Earnings quality (15%) and Valuation (15%). The score falls into one of five verdicts: Unhealthy, Weak, Mixed, Good or Strong. A critical flag can cap the verdict even when the average is higher.

Scores are formula-generated from companies’ SEC filings and are not a recommendation.

• Growth: sales and earnings growth.
• Profitability: returns and cash generation.
• Financial health: debt, liquidity and staying power.
• Earnings quality: how well profits are backed by cash.
• Valuation: the price against the company’s fundamentals, using daily prices from IEX.

Measures without enough data are left out, not counted as zero. If a stock has no IEX trades, the other four pillars make up the whole score.

The five-sided chart shows each pillar’s score from 0 to 10 on its own axis. The further a corner reaches toward the outer edge, the stronger that pillar, so the shape shows at a glance where a company is strong and where it is weak.

Each dot takes the same color as the pillar’s score: green at 6.5 or higher, neutral from 5 to 6.4, orange from 3.5 to 4.9 and red below 3.5. After an earnings release, a dashed outline shows the scores before the release, so you can see which pillars moved.

When a company files its earnings press release with the SEC (Form 8-K), the site updates the parts of the score the release covers: revenue, net income and earnings per share. The site checks the SEC for new releases every 3 hours.

The full score follows when the company files its quarterly report (Form 10-Q), with the complete balance sheet and cash flow, usually 2–6 weeks after the release. Some companies file both on the same day, and then only the full score appears. In past quarters, 9 in 10 preliminary scores landed within 0.3 points of the full score.

A company’s announcement of its quarterly results, usually a press release filed with the SEC on Form 8-K. It comes before the full quarterly report (Form 10-Q), which follows days or weeks later with the complete financial statements.

Reported figures follow standard accounting rules (GAAP). Many companies also give adjusted figures that leave out items they consider one-time, such as restructuring costs, impairments or gains on investments.

When the reported figure changes much more than the adjusted one, a one-time item usually explains the gap, and the adjusted change is often closer to the underlying trend. The site’s scores use reported figures only; adjusted figures are shown for context.

Prices move on how results and the outlook compare with what investors already expected. A good quarter can still disappoint if expectations were higher, if the outlook didn’t improve, or if the stock had already risen sharply beforehand (“sell the news”).

Each release lists what else happened that day: the whole market (the S&P 500), the stock’s sector, its largest peers, the run-up over the month before, the outlook and other company filings around the release. When the market and the sector were flat, the move was most likely about the company itself.

Guidance (also called the outlook, or forward guidance) is a company’s own forecast of its results, usually for the full year. Each quarter it can raise, lower, narrow or keep its ranges.

Investors compare the middle of the new range with the previous one and with what analysts expected: a raise usually helps the stock, a cut usually hurts, and an unchanged outlook after a strong quarter can disappoint. Guidance is the company’s expectation, not a promise.

• Raised or lowered: the middle of the range moved up or down by 2.5% or more.
• About unchanged: the middle moved by less than 2.5%.
• Narrowed: the range got tighter around the same middle. That adds certainty, but the forecast didn’t improve.

On a stock’s page, the dashed bar is the previous range and the solid bar the new one, with a tick at the middle of each.

A range is usually read by its middle. Narrowing $14–16 billion to $14.5–15.5 billion keeps the middle at $15 billion, so the forecast didn’t rise, even though the bottom of the range went up.

Investors usually weigh the profit outlook (operating profit and earnings per share) most, which is why the site lists profit first. A raised cash-flow forecast may not offset an unchanged profit forecast.

Some companies give their outlook on both bases. The reported-basis outlook (standard accounting) includes one-time items already recorded during the year, so it can differ from the adjusted one.

Companies usually update their guidance with each quarterly release. The fourth-quarter release, early in the new year, is usually when they give their first outlook for that year. A company can also change its guidance between releases in a separate filing, which its company timeline shows.

Call: how the release compared with what forecasters expected. For inflation, Hotter means higher than expected and Cooler lower; for others, Beat or Miss.

Verdict: the call and SPY’s move that day read together. For example, an inflation print is Healthy when SPY rose at least 0.3% after a cooler or in-line reading, Unhealthy when it fell at least 0.3% after a hotter or in-line one, and Mixed otherwise; each scorecard sets its own thresholds.

SPY: the change at the open (the gap from the prior close) and over the whole day.

• Company results and filings: the SEC’s EDGAR system, checked every 3 hours.
• Prices for scores and moves: end-of-day closes from the IEX exchange.
• Live quotes and charts: TradingView widgets, which may be delayed.
• Economic releases: first prints from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Federal Reserve and the University of Michigan, as recorded in the site owner’s scorecards.