SkillSmith Earnings Call Decoder
A generic AI can summarize an earnings call. It can't tell you what management dodged, or which "adjusted EPS beat" is quietly falling apart underneath — and that read is the whole job.
What it does
Most "summarize this earnings call" tools just retell the good news: revenue up, EPS beat, management upbeat. The work that actually separates a real read from a press-release rehash is the two pieces a sell-side analyst spends hours on by hand — catching what management evaded in the Q&A, and cross-referencing several quarters of numbers to spot earnings that look strong but aren't backed by cash.
Give it an earnings call transcript, a 10-Q / 10-K, or a press release (a ticker also works if you let it fetch), and it decodes the quarter into five deliverables: a cross-quarter numbers diff, a tone & evasion forensic, a beat/miss vs consensus, a severity-rated red-flag checklist, and a one-line bull/bear verdict with three metrics to watch — plain-text output you own.
How it works
A five-step workflow, each step gated by a verbatim-quote-or-cited-number rule:
| Step | Output |
|---|---|
| 1. Extract & normalize | Pull this-Q / last-Q / year-ago revenue, margin, EPS (GAAP vs adjusted kept separate), CFO, FCF, and the industry's key KPIs into a QoQ/YoY diff table |
| 2. Tone & evasion forensics | Score overall tone, guidance direction, and evasion; catch dodged Q&A via question–answer pairing — every call backed by a transcript quote |
| 3. Beat/Miss vs consensus | Revenue, EPS, KPIs, and next-Q guidance vs estimates, each tagged high- or low-quality |
| 4. Cross-quarter red-flag scan | Inventory, receivables, cash-flow quality, one-time items, accounting changes — flags divergence, rated high/med/low with the cited number |
| 5. Synthesize the verdict | One-line, neutral bull/bear call with a stated confidence level + three specific metrics to track next quarter |
⭐ Featured example — decoding NovaGrid's FY26 Q3 call
Input: the earnings exhibit and two Q&A excerpts from NovaGrid Inc.'s FY2026 Q3 call (a fictional company used to demo the workflow end to end).
Output: the Skill doesn't echo the headline "adjusted EPS beat." It flags that the beat is hollow — gross margin hit a 3-year high and adjusted EPS still grew, yet revenue growth halved to +6%, operating cash flow fell 65% YoY, and inventory/receivables ballooned at 4–6× the pace of revenue. It scores the call Defensive / Red Flag (−1.67), catching the CFO waving off the cash-flow collapse as "some timing factors… we expect it to normalize" (no number, no cause) and the CEO packaging a below-consensus guide as "we're choosing to be prudent… the long-term story is unchanged":
![Decode report: management tone & evasion forensics, cross-quarter red-flag checklist, and beat/miss vs consensus]
Then it lands a single neutral verdict and three concrete, measurable things to watch next quarter — tied directly to this quarter's red flags, not boilerplate:
![Verdict: one-line neutral bull/bear call with a stated confidence level and three metrics to track next quarter]
Every tone call carries a verbatim quote; every red flag carries the number. Where a figure isn't in the input — last-quarter absolutes, GAAP consensus — it's marked N/A, never backfilled.
Why it's different
- The value is in what management didn't say, and what the numbers contradict — not the recap. A free AI summary retells the call. It won't run a question–answer pairing check to prove a question was evaded, or cross-reference inventory vs revenue across quarters to show an "adjusted" beat has no cash behind it. That forensic layer is the product.
- Two repeatable scoring engines. A −2 to +2 tone scale with explicit anchors, and a seven-category red-flag library keyed on cross-quarter divergence (inventory/receivables vs revenue, CFO vs net income, widening GAAP–adjusted gap, recurring "one-time" charges). Stable, repeatable output you can run as a screening pass.
- Self-owned, sandbox-ready, no paid API. Runs fully in "paste the transcript" mode; WebSearch/WebFetch and
deep-researchare optional enhancements, never a dependency. - Guardrailed against hallucination. Never fabricates numbers, estimates, or quotes; GAAP vs adjusted kept distinct; no price targets or buy/sell calls — only a neutral writeup with metrics to watch.
Disclaimer
This Skill produces educational, structured analysis of public information. It is not investment advice, and does not constitute an offer or recommendation to buy or sell any security. Output is not guaranteed accurate or complete; verify all numbers against the company's official filings (10-Q/10-K/8-K). Investing carries risk — do your own due diligence and take responsibility for your own decisions.
