In normal financial markets, earnings releases move stocks because of what a company did. Revenue was earned. Cash was generated. Margins expanded or contracted. Investors reward or punish companies according to actual, reported performance.

But in the current AI-driven market, that logic has gone out the window. And it seems like everyone is pulling out the 2000s accounting trick playbook.

Nothing proves this more clearly than what happened tonight with Marvell Technology ( MRVL -1.01%↓ ).

When Marvell first released its numbers, the stock dropped roughly -8% after-hours to $85 a share. It deserved to. The financials were weak: minimal GAAP profitability, a dependence on non-GAAP adjustments, and operating income that looked nothing like what one would expect from a supposed "core beneficiary of the AI data center boom."

But then the earnings call started — and something remarkable happened.