So, you know how earnings season can be a bit of a mood swing? Snowflake Inc. (SNOW) just gave investors a classic example. The data cloud company reported its fourth-quarter numbers after the bell on Wednesday, and the stock decided to take everyone on a little ride.

First, the good news: Snowflake beat the numbers. The company reported revenue of $1.28 billion, which was better than the $1.26 billion analysts were expecting. On the bottom line, adjusted earnings came in at 34 cents per share, topping estimates of 27 cents. So far, so good. Revenue was up a solid 30% from the same quarter last year.

But here's where it gets interesting. The stock initially popped on the headline beat, trading up around $180. Then, it did a complete 180 (pun not really intended) and turned negative. By the time the dust settled in after-hours trading, shares were down about 3.7%, hovering around $163. What gives?

The Numbers Behind The Beat

Let's dig into the details. The core product revenue, which is what everyone watches, was $1.23 billion—also up 30% year-over-year. The company's net revenue retention rate, a key metric showing how much existing customers are spending more, was a healthy 125%.

Perhaps more telling for future growth is something called "remaining performance obligations"—basically, contracted revenue that hasn't been recognized yet. That number hit $9.77 billion, up a whopping 42% from a year ago. Snowflake also ended the quarter with 733 customers who generate over $1 million in trailing product revenue, a figure that grew by 40% year-over-year after adding 74 new members to that club last quarter. The company's war chest? About $2.83 billion in cash and equivalents.

The AI Pitch And The Guidance Glitch

On the earnings call, CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy didn't hold back on the big picture. "This past year has been transformative for every business, as the promise of AI became real, and Snowflake sits at the center of the enterprise AI revolution," he said. He argued that the company's decade-long focus on creating a "single source of truth" for data with strong governance makes it the ideal, safe platform for building AI applications. "Now, we're activating world-class agentic capabilities on top of that platform," he added.

But then came the outlook, which might be where the after-hours enthusiasm hit a speed bump. For the current first quarter, Snowflake expects product revenue between $1.26 billion and $1.27 billion. That represents year-over-year growth of about 27%. While still strong, that's a deceleration from the 30% growth just reported. For some investors watching every tick of growth in the hyperscale software world, that might have been the cue to take some profits off the table after the initial pop.

The company also forecast an adjusted operating margin of 9% for Q1 and 12.5% for the full fiscal year. Executives were slated to dive deeper into all of this on their conference call with analysts starting at 5 p.m. ET.

So, there you have it. A beat on the past quarter's results, a confident CEO talking up the AI future, but a guide for the next quarter that, while solid, perhaps didn't blow the doors off. In the world of high-multiple tech stocks, that's sometimes all it takes for a post-earnings reversal. The market giveth, and the market taketh away—sometimes in the span of a few minutes.