The simple version

A results release has two kinds of figure in it. There are the ones computed under the standard rulebook and signed off, and there are the ones the company designed.

The second kind can be called anything. The name is marketing, the definition sits further down the release, and the two do not always agree.

So the useful habit is to read the definition before the figure. The gap between a name and its definition is where the reading goes wrong.

The numbers

• Strategy Inc's third-quarter 2026 release carries a section headed Important Information About KPIs, which names four measures the company monitors and reviews: Bitcoin Per Share, expressed in Satoshis and abbreviated BPS in Sats, plus BTC Yield, BTC Gain and BTC Dollar Gain. Form 8-K exhibit filed with the SEC on October 29, 2026.
• Of one of them, the release states that it does not represent a fair value gain of the company's bitcoin position, nor any other realized or unrealized financial gain, and that it may read positive during periods when the company has incurred fair value losses on that position, or negative during periods when it has incurred fair value gains.
• The same section states that none of the four is indicative or predictive of the trading price of the company's securities, and that investors should rely on the financial statements and other disclosures contained in the company's SEC filings.
• The release also says the four are not measures of income generated by the company's operations or by its bitcoin position, and not a return on investment on that position.
• For scale, the audited figures in the same release: total revenues of $125.4 million for the quarter, down 3 percent from $128.7 million a year earlier; gross profit of $89.6 million at a 71 percent gross margin; operating income of $21 billion; and net income attributable to common stockholders of $19.12 billion with diluted earnings per share of $44.75.
• The gap between those two groups of figures comes from a separate line the release also reports, a $20.91 billion gain on digital assets for the quarter, which arises from an accounting standard the release names as Accounting Standards Update No. 2023-08. That standard and how a price change reaches reported profit is a different subject from this article, and our existing piece on a paper gain at another company covers it.
• The Commission draws the line in the adopting release for Conditions for Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures, Release No. 33-8176. It states that a non-GAAP financial measure does not include operating and other financial measures and ratios or statistical measures calculated using only GAAP figures and operating measures, and that the definition is not intended to capture measures of operating performance or statistical measures outside its scope, giving unit sales, numbers of employees, numbers of subscribers and numbers of advertisers as examples.
• Where the definition does bite, the same release requires the nearest comparable GAAP figure to be presented with equal or greater prominence and a reconciliation between the two. Those duties attach to a measure built from the financial statements, not to a ratio of a token count to a share count.
• Read in the filings themselves at the SEC on October 30, 2026. Strategy accession 0001050446-26-000047; the adopting release at its SEC rules page.

Why the rulebook allows this

There are two categories here and only one of them carries duties. The dividing line is whether the figure was built out of the statements themselves.

Build one that way and the regulator makes you set the nearest standard figure beside it, at least as prominently, and walk a reader from one to the other. Those duties attach to how the figure was made, not to what it is called.

The four in this release sit on the other side of that line. A count divided by a count is not built out of the statements, so the definition leaves it out, no duty attaches, and the only counterweight left is whatever the company chooses to say.

The actual math on what a name is worth

Take the disclaimer at its word and see what it leaves out. A figure that can show a plus sign while the company went backwards cannot be a measure of whether the company went backwards.

It also cannot be a return, because a return has to fall when the thing it measures falls. Both of those limits come from the company's own definition and neither is a reading of ours.

What is left is a figure about the relationship between one position and a share count. That is a real thing to track and it is not what the word gain conveys to a reader.

What this means

When a results headline leads with a measure you have not seen before, find its definition before you decide what it tells you. It will be in the release, usually near the end.

If the definition says the figure is not a measure of profit, not a return and not predictive of the share price, then it is none of those, whatever it is called.

The transferable habit is to treat a self-made figure as a claim that comes with its own fine print. The fine print is written by the same company and it is usually the more informative half.

What this is NOT

This article explains that companies may publish measures of their own design alongside audited figures and what the disclosure rules require of them, using the Important Information About KPIs section of Strategy Inc's third-quarter 2026 Form 8-K exhibit, filed October 29, 2026 and read on October 30, 2026, as the worked example. It is not investment advice about that company, about bitcoin or about any security, it is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold anything, and we do not give personalized advice. It is not a claim that the company did anything improper or misleading: every statement we report is the company's own, published in the same release as the measures it describes, and the disclosure is what the rules ask for. It is not a legal analysis of the disclosure rules. We state the definitional boundary and the two requirements from the Commission's own adopting release and go no further, and we make no claim about which category any particular one of the four measures would fall into if it were tested. It does not explain how a price change reaches reported profit, which is a separate mechanism our existing piece on another company's paper gain covers and which this article links rather than repeats. We quote only the release's own unattributed prose and not the statements attributed to named executives in it. We have not read the quarterly report or any reconciliation table, so we make no claim about how any of the four measures is computed beyond what the release states. The math section of this article contains no calculation of ours: it draws out what the company's own definition rules out, and every figure quoted anywhere above is the company's. This is not a political endorsement or criticism of anyone.

Sources

• Strategy Inc, Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1, third quarter 2026 financial results, filed October 29, 2026, accession 0001050446-26-000047. The Important Information About KPIs section naming the four measures, the statements of what one of them does not represent and when it may read positive or negative, the statement that none is indicative or predictive of the trading price, the direction to rely on the financial statements and other SEC disclosures, total revenues and gross profit, operating income, net income and diluted earnings per share, the gain on digital assets, and the naming of Accounting Standards Update No. 2023-08. Read October 30, 2026.
• U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Final Rule, Conditions for Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures, Release No. 33-8176, 17 CFR Parts 228, 229, 244 and 249. The definition of a non-GAAP financial measure and what it excludes, the discussion of operating and statistical measures, and the equal-or-greater-prominence and reconciliation requirements for measures the definition covers. Read October 30, 2026.