what is quarter over quarter q q 
quarter over quarter q q is a measure of an investment or a company s growth from one quarter to the next q q growth is most commonly used to compare a company s growth in profits or revenue although it can also be used to describe changes in an economy s money supply gross domestic product gdp or other economic measurements understanding quarter over quarter q q investors and analysts examine financial statements which are released either yearly or quarterly to assess the financial health of a company the quarterly statements are publicly available through the edgar database provided by the securities and exchange commission sec or a company s website and are called 10 q statements analysts look at q q numbers and changes when reviewing a company s performance over multiple quarterly periods q q is a rate of change in performance between one fiscal quarter and the previous quarter a quarter is generally three months or 90 days q q measures the changes in the growth rate of different financial numbers and metrics found in the financial statements from one period to the next typically the comparison is between reports from one quarter of the company s fiscal year with the reports from the previous quarter q q is calculated as follows current quarter previous quarter previous quartercertain economic reports are released quarterly and compared to previous quarters to indicate economic growth or decline for example the gross domestic product gdp report released by the bureau of economic analysis bea is released on a quarterly basis and influences the decisions of the government businesses and individuals the report shows how gdp has changed from one quarter to the next and can signal possible economic outcomes such as a recession or depression as a recession is considered to be a decline in gdp over two consecutive quarters analyzing the change in gdp from quarter to quarter will allow policymakers to make policy adjustments to avoid further economic fallout for example if they are witnessing a declining gdp variations of quarter over quarter q q other variations of q q are month over month m m and year over year yoy the month over month measures growth over previous months but tends to be more volatile than q q as the rate of change is affected by one time events such as natural disasters the yoy measures changes in performance in one year over the previous year yoy incorporates more data and thus provides a better long term picture of the underlying report figure the q q rate of change is typically more volatile than the yoy measurement but less volatile than the m m figure real world examplethe table below shows the q1 and q2 earnings of intel corporation and ibm corporation for 2018 in millions intelibmq1 earnings 4 500 1 700q2 earnings 5 000 2 400q q change 5 000 4 500 4 500 2 400 1 700 1 700