What happened

Shares of 3D printer maker Markforged Holding Corporation (MKFG -7.19%) collapsed after the stock beat on sales but missed on earnings.

Analysts weren't overly optimistic about Markforged even before earnings came out, forecasting that the company would lose $0.07 per share (adjusted) on sales of $22.5 million. But Markforged managed to disappoint Wall Street anyway, losing $0.09 per share despite reporting sales of $24.2 million.  

As of 10 a.m. ET, the stock is down 12.5%.

So what

And yet the news wasn't all bad. For one thing, Markforged managed to grow its revenues 19% year over year in fiscal Q2. And although gross margins dropped by 500 basis points, to 53%, and Markforged ended up reporting a bigger-than-expected adjusted loss, when calculated according to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), Markforged actually earned a profit of $0.02 per share -- much better than its loss of $0.28 per share a year ago.  

And given that the GAAP number was so good, why Markforged is emphasizing a non-GAAP number is honestly beyond me.

Now what

Regardless of the good GAAP news, however, investors today are probably paying more attention to Markforged guidance for the rest of this year -- which is not great. With analysts expecting Markforged to produce $118 million in sales and a non-GAAP loss of $0.28 per share, investors were doubtless disappointed to hear management promise that its sales will fall short of estimates (only $110 million to $115 million) and that its adjusted loss will be at least $0.29 per share -- and perhaps as much as $0.32 per share.  

Given that Markforged has elected to report one earnings miss for Q2 and promise continued misses all year long, it's really no surprise that investors are selling off the stock this morning. Unless and until management has some better news to report, I expect this sell-off to continue.