What Is an Earnings Call?

By Jeremy Bowman – Updated Dec 31, 2024 at 4:27 PM

Key Points

Publicly traded companies hold quarterly earnings calls to discuss financial results.
Earnings calls provide insights beyond written reports, like new initiatives.
Listening to calls offers deeper understanding of company direction and challenges.

Publicly traded companies communicate with their shareholders and the general public in a number of ways. They issue press releases when they have news to report. They file reports about quarterly earnings and material news events with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and they hold earnings calls each quarter.

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Person using a telephone on a desk. — Image source: Getty Images.

During these calls, they discuss financial results and topics like company initiatives, the business environment, and the competitive landscape. They also field questions from Wall Street analysts during earnings calls, allowing investor representatives to address company management and solicit more information.

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C-Suite

A company’s C-suite are the top-level leaders who shape its culture, performance, and vision.

The Q&A session is a good opportunity for analysts and the public to learn new things about the company since the scope of their questions tends to be broad. Management generally takes questions from around a dozen analysts. For most large companies, the earnings call lasts about an hour, although it can be significantly shorter depending on the number of questions.

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About the Author

Jeremy Bowman has been a contributing Motley Fool stock market analyst, covering technology, consumer goods, and macroeconomic trends since 2011. Before The Motley Fool, Jeremy was a newspaper reporter, restaurant manager, and English teacher abroad. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Colorado College and a master’s degree in business administration from American University. One of his Motley Fool headlines was briefly featured on Late Night with Stephen Colbert.

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Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Jeremy Bowman has positions in Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Apple and Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.