Earnings per Share

Earnings per share (EPS)  measures the net income earned on each share of common stock. Stockholders usually think in terms of the number of shares they own or plan to buy or sell, so stating net income earned as a per share amount provides a useful perspective for determining the investment return. Advanced accounting courses present more refined techniques for calculating earnings per share.

For now, a basic approach for calculating earnings per share is to divide earnings available to common stockholders by weighted‐average common shares outstanding during the year. What is “earnings available to common stockholders”? It is an earnings amount calculated as net income less dividends paid on another type of stock, called preferred stock (Net income−Preferred dividends)(Net income−Preferred dividends).

DECISION TOOLS

Earnings per share helps users compare a company’s performance with that of previous years.

By comparing earnings per share of a single company over time, we can evaluate its relative earnings performance from the perspective of a stockholder—that is, on a per share basis. It is very important to note that comparisons of earnings per share across companies are not meaningful because of the wide variations in the numbers of shares of outstanding stock among companies.

Illustration 2-11  shows the earnings per share calculation for Best Buy in 2014 and 2013, based on the information presented below. Recall that Best Buy’s 2013 income is based on 11 months of results. Further, to simplify our calculations, we assumed that any change in the number of shares for Best Buy occurred in the middle of the year.