← Glossary · Financial ratios
Earnings per share (EPS)
A company's profit divided across each individual share.
Earnings per share (EPS) is net profit divided by the number of shares. It makes companies of different sizes comparable and is the basis of the P/E ratio.
With quarterly results, investors mainly look at whether EPS beat or missed analysts' expectations. That difference is called the surprise and often moves the price more than the profit itself.