Earnings per share is the amount of earnings per each outstanding share of a company's stock.
In the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, the
Financial Accounting Standards BoardThe Financial Accounting Standards Board is a private, not-for-profit organization whose primary purpose is to develop generally accepted accounting principles within the United States in the public's interest...
(FASB) requires companies' income statements to report EPS for each of the major categories of the
income statementIncome statement is a company's financial statement that indicates how the revenue Income statement (also referred to as profit and loss statement (P&L), statement of financial performance, earnings statement, operating statement or statement of operations) is a company's financial statement that...
: continuing operations, discontinued operations, extraordinary items, and
net incomeNet income is the residual income of a firm after adding total revenue and gains and subtracting all expenses and losses for the reporting period. Net income can be distributed among holders of common stock as a dividend or held by the firm as an addition to retained earnings...
.
Calculating EPS
The EPS formula does not include preferred dividends for categories outside of continued operations and net income. Earnings per share for continuing operations and net income are more complicated in that any preferred dividends are removed from net income before calculating EPS. This is because
preferred stockPreferred stock, also called preferred shares, preference shares, or simply preferreds, is a special equity security that has properties of both an equity and a debt instrument and is generally considered a hybrid instrument...
rights have precedence over
common stockCommon stock is a form of corporate equity ownership, a type of security. It is called "common" to distinguish it from preferred stock. In the event of bankruptcy, common stock investors receive their funds after preferred stock holders, bondholders, creditors, etc...
. If preferred dividends total $100,000, then that is money not available to distribute to each share of common stock.
Earnings Per Share (Basic Formula)
Earnings Per Share (Net Income Formula)
Earnings Per Share (Continuing Operations Formula)
Only preferred dividends actually declared in the current year are subtracted. The exception is when preferred shares are cumulative, in which case annual dividends are deducted regardless of whether they have been declared or not. Dividends in arrears are not relevant when calculating EPS.
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