What an earnings report contains
Public companies publish detailed financial reports quarterly or semi-annually. These contain three core financial statements: the income statement (profit and loss), the balance sheet (assets and liabilities at a point in time) and the cash flow statement (sources and uses of cash). They also contain management commentary, guidance on future performance and discussion of risks.
The headline numbers
Revenue (or turnover) is the total sales the company generated in the period. Earnings per share (EPS) is the company's profit divided by its number of shares. Whether a company meets, beats or misses analyst consensus estimates on these numbers often drives short-term share price movements more than the absolute numbers.
What actually matters for long-term investors
Beyond the headline numbers, pay attention to revenue growth trends, margin expansion or compression, free cash flow (operating cash flow minus capital expenditure, which shows what cash the business is actually generating), debt levels (look at the net debt to EBITDA ratio) and guidance (management's own forecast for the next period is often the most important element of an earnings release).