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The Earnings Catalyst Score (ECS) is a 0–100 composite ranking that answers one question for every quarter: which companies delivered the highest-quality results? It is not just about growth — it measures quality of growth, combining revenue acceleration, profit expansion, cash flow backing, and operational leverage into a single sortable score.
ECS is computed after each results season against all companies with sufficient quarterly data in the Finmagine database. The score is relative — a score of 85 means this company's results were stronger than roughly 85% of the universe for that quarter. Scores reset each quarter; a company that scored 90 last quarter may score 50 this quarter if its growth slowed.
Most investors check results one company at a time. The ECS gives you a market-wide rankings view immediately after results season — so instead of spending a week reviewing 50 companies, you can filter to ECS ≥ 70 and focus only on the top performers. Combined with the PEAD signal and Management Tone overlay, you can quickly surface the companies where:
That combination — strong numbers, underreacted price, confident management — is the ECS page's primary signal output.
The default ECS formula weights seven earnings-quality metrics. Each metric is converted to a percentile score within the quarter's universe (0–100), then combined using the weights below:
| Metric | Default Weight | What It Measures |
|---|---|---|
| NP YoY % | 30% | Net Profit year-on-year growth — the core earnings quality signal. High NP YoY with low Sales YoY usually means margin expansion; both high is best. |
| Sales YoY % | 20% | Revenue year-on-year growth — top-line momentum. Revenue growth that is slowing even while profits rise is a yellow flag for future quarters. |
| NP QoQ % | 15% | Net Profit quarter-on-quarter growth — sequential momentum. A company accelerating both YoY and QoQ is in a genuine earnings upcycle. |
| CFO / Profit | 15% | Operating Cash Flow divided by Net Profit — cash quality ratio. A ratio ≥ 1.0 means every ₹1 of reported profit is backed by ≥ ₹1 of actual cash. A ratio < 0.5 is a red flag — earnings are not converting to cash. |
| Sales QoQ % | 10% | Revenue quarter-on-quarter growth — sequential top-line momentum. Rising QoQ alongside rising YoY is the strongest revenue trajectory. |
| EBIT YoY % | 5% | EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Tax) year-on-year — operating earnings before financing. Captures operational leverage more cleanly than NP in debt-heavy sectors. |
| EBIT QoQ % | 5% | EBIT quarter-on-quarter — sequential operating leverage trend. |
| Score | Colour | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| 70–100 | 85.4 | Top-tier quarter — this company's results were stronger than most of the universe. Strong candidate for further research. |
| 40–69 | 54.1 | Solid quarter — results above average but not exceptional. Suitable as a monitor/hold position. |
| 0–39 | 28.7 | Weak relative performance this quarter. May be cyclical or structural — check the individual metrics to diagnose. |
| — | — | Insufficient data — too few metrics available to compute a reliable score. |
PEAD stands for Post-Earnings Announcement Drift — a well-documented market phenomenon where stocks that report strong earnings continue to drift higher for days to weeks after the announcement, as the market gradually absorbs the positive surprise. The inverse (continued drift lower after bad results) also applies.
The Finmagine PEAD signal is a technical confirmation layer: it marks ✓ PEAD for companies where both the earnings were strong and the price action in the days following results confirms positive drift — the stock did not immediately give back the post-earnings gap, and volume supported the move.
ECS measures the quality of the reported numbers. PEAD measures whether the market is confirming those numbers with price action. A company can have a high ECS score but fail the PEAD check if the stock sold off after results (suggesting the market expected even more, or has concerns not captured in the headline numbers).
The ideal setup is High ECS + PEAD confirmed — the fundamentals are strong and the price is agreeing. This is a post-earnings continuation candidate rather than a mean-reversion play.
The Management Tone column shows the tone classification extracted from the company's most recent earnings concall transcript by Finmagine's AI tone tracker. It adds a forward-looking qualitative dimension to the backward-looking quantitative ECS score.
| Tone | Signal Colour | What It Means |
|---|---|---|
| Confident Specific | Green | Management gives precise guidance with numbers — specific revenue targets, margin guidance, capacity expansion timelines. The strongest tone signal. |
| Confident Vague | Lime | Positive tone but without specific numbers — "strong pipeline", "continuing momentum". Positive but less actionable than Confident Specific. |
| Mixed | Amber | Some positive signals alongside some concerns or hedging — "good performance in X segment, challenges in Y". Neutral overall. |
| Cautious | Orange | Management is explicitly flagging headwinds or tempering expectations. Even with a high ECS, caution from management warrants extra diligence. |
| Defensive | Red | Management is deflecting or justifying weak results. High ECS with Defensive tone suggests the good results may be one-off or unsustainable. |
| Evasive | Purple | Management avoids direct answers on key questions. The most negative tone signal — often precedes a guidance cut or earnings disappointment. |
Below each tone label is a direction indicator showing how tone has changed versus the prior concall:
Hover over the tone indicator to see the tone "lens" — a short AI-generated excerpt from the concall that best illustrates the classified tone.
The main table is sortable by any column. Click a column header once to sort descending, again to sort ascending. The active sort column is highlighted in blue with an arrow.
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| # | Rank within the currently filtered and sorted view |
| Company | NSE symbol (indigo badge) + company name + sector. Click to open the full stock page. |
| MCap | Current market capitalisation in ₹ Cr |
| ECS | Composite Earnings Catalyst Score — green ≥70, amber 40–69, red <40. Recalculates with custom weights when you use the Adjust Weights panel. |
| PEAD | ✓ PEAD = PEAD signal confirmed · dash = not confirmed or insufficient data |
| Mgmt Tone | AI tone classification with direction indicator. Hover for the source excerpt. |
| PE | Price-to-Earnings ratio — <20× green (value), 20–40× amber (fair), >40× red (expensive). Use to calibrate whether strong ECS is already priced in. |
| Sales YoY / QoQ | Revenue growth year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter — +25.3% green positive, −8.1% red negative |
| NP YoY / QoQ | Net Profit growth year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter |
| EBIT YoY | EBIT (operating earnings) year-on-year growth |
| CFO / Profit | Cash-flow-from-operations divided by Net Profit — ≥1.0 green (fully cash-backed), 0.5–1.0 amber, <0.5 red (accrual heavy) |
| HOLD | ● HOLD — this stock is in your portfolio (logged-in users only) |
| WATCH | ◎ WATCH — this stock is in your watchlist (logged-in users only) |
Drag the slider to set a minimum ECS threshold (0–90 in steps of 5). Setting Min ECS to 60 immediately removes the bottom 60% of the universe. The filter count in the top-right of the filter bar updates in real time as you move the slider.
Filter to a single NSE sector. Use this when you are investigating a specific sector's earnings season — e.g., filter to IT Services to see how all software companies ranked relative to each other this quarter.
Checkbox — when ticked, only shows rows with ✓ PEAD confirmed. This is the most powerful single filter on the page for finding post-earnings continuation candidates.
Available to logged-in users. When ticked, hides all companies except those in your portfolio (HOLD) or watchlist (WATCH). Use at the start of each results season to instantly check how your existing positions scored.
In the page header, the quarter dropdown lets you switch between available scored quarters — for example, Mar 2026, Dec 2025, Sep 2025. ECS is computed and stored per quarter, so you can look back at prior seasons. The "Last computed" timestamp shows how recently the current quarter's scores were calculated.
Click Adjust Weights in the page header to open the weight customisation panel. Seven sliders control the relative contribution of each metric to the final ECS score.
The weights do not need to sum to 100 — the system normalises them automatically. Setting a weight to 0 removes that metric from the calculation entirely.
| Investment Style | Suggested Adjustment |
|---|---|
| Quality / Cash Flow | Increase CFO/Profit to 30–40; this surfaces companies with the cleanest profit-to-cash conversion, regardless of headline growth rate |
| Growth | Increase Sales YoY and NP YoY to 30+ each; set CFO/Profit lower — growth companies often reinvest cash and have lower CFO ratios in upcycles |
| Momentum / Acceleration | Increase NP QoQ and Sales QoQ to 25–30 each; this surfaces companies where growth is accelerating quarter-over-quarter, not just beating year-ago comps |
| Operational Leverage | Increase EBIT YoY and EBIT QoQ to 20+ each; this finds companies where operating leverage is kicking in — revenues growing faster than costs |
After adjusting the sliders, click ⚡ Recalculate. The table instantly re-scores and re-ranks using your custom formula. The ECS column now shows your personalised scores — the column header does not change, but the values update. Click ↺ Reset Defaults to return to the original Finmagine weights.
Use this at the end of each results season (late May for Q4, late August for Q1, late November for Q2, late February for Q3) once ECS scores are computed for the latest quarter:
ECS scores are computed from the earnings_catalyst_scores table, which is populated by Finmagine's quarterly results pipeline. The percentile conversion is done across the full scored universe for each quarter — the score is always relative to other companies in the same period, not absolute.
Scores are recomputed periodically during results season as more companies file. Early in the season (first two weeks), the universe is smaller so percentiles may shift as more companies report. Scores stabilise once 80%+ of companies have filed — typically 6–8 weeks after quarter-end.
PEAD signals are computed by the detect-volume-events.php pipeline, which runs daily and evaluates price and volume drift following each earnings date. A company that reported but had no significant volume event will not carry a PEAD flag.
Management Tone data is sourced from AI analysis of concall transcripts via the Tone Tracker pipeline. Coverage depends on transcript availability — not all companies publish concall transcripts.
Finmagine gives you 30+ computed financial ratios, sector benchmarks, FII/DII flows, the Finmagine Score, and AI-powered analysis — all in one place.