Twitter just posted its first-quarter earnings, and the results were far below Wall Street estimates. That, in conjunction with the company's earnings having leaked online ahead of time, caused Twitter shares to fall to about $42.27.

Twitter announced it brought in $436 million in revenue, while analysts had predicted $456 million. The company attributed the miss to its acquisition of TellApart. Twitter also had a GAAP loss of $162 million, compared with $132 million in the year-ago quarter, and it lowered revenue projections for next quarter to $470-$485 million, which is below expectations of $538.1 million.

Apart from the financial stuff, Twitter had 302 million monthly active users for the 90-day period that ended on 31 March, an 18 per cent year-over-year increase. The company had 288 million in the previous quarter. Twitter also said mobile active users represented approximately 80 per cent of total active users, meaning Twitter missed its own forecast/target for mobile active users.

Before markets closed today, Twitter's quarterly earnings were leaked by Selerity, a company that claimed to retrieve the results from Twitter's investor page. Once Twitter's stock began to plummet, the company halted trading and released everything early Twitter's stock is now down about 18 per cent.

Tune into Twitter's conference call at 2 PM PST to hear executives discuss the financial results in detail.