What happened

Shares of Twilio (TWLO 1.58%) soared as much as 36.5% on Wednesday, following the release of strong third-quarter results. The stock closed today's trading 35.4% above Tuesday's final quote.

So what

The provider of cloud-based communications solutions saw its total revenue rise 68% year over year, landing at $169 million. The analyst consensus had been pointing to roughly $150 million. On the bottom line, Twilio swung from an adjusted net loss of $0.08 per share in the year-ago quarter to $0.07 per share in adjusted earnings this time. Here, the Street would have settled for $0.05 per share.

On top of that, smaller sector peer SendGrid (SEND) also crushed Wall Street's estimates in its own second-quarter report. That's good news for Twilio and its investors because Twilio is in the process of acquiring SendGrid for a cool $2 billion.

Two female office workers shout their support for a hard-working male colleague, who works with his necktie around his temples.

Image source: Getty Images.

Now what

Twilio investors have now seen their holdings triple in value during 2018. With negative trailing earnings and free cash flows, value investors can't rely on P/E ratios or discounted cash flows to pin a fair value on Twilio's stock yet. That's why it's no surprise to see the stock make a sharp move on this solid report. Twilio's volatility should continue to run high for the foreseeable future.