A company's profit divided by its number of shares, the single number earnings season revolves around.
Earnings Per Share takes a company's total profit for a quarter or year and divides it by the number of shares outstanding, turning a headline profit figure into something comparable across companies of different sizes. It's the number Wall Street analysts forecast ahead of time and compare against once results land, and a company "beating" or "missing" EPS estimates, even by a cent, can move a stock sharply, sometimes more than the raw profit number itself would suggest is warranted.
Part of the Open Bell Glossary — plain-English explanations of the terms that come up on the show. Browse every term.