Glossary · Stocks and markets
Earnings per share (EPS)
Earnings per share (EPS) is a company’s profit divided by its number of shares: how much profit each single share earned.
Also called: EPS, earnings, profit per share, diluted EPS
Reported, last 12 months to Jun 2026, in index dollars. Growth since Jun 2016: 13.0% a year.
In plain words
A pizza shop makes $50,000 of profit in a year and is split into 10,000 shares. Each share’s slice of the profit is $5. That is its earnings per share, or EPS.
Companies report EPS every quarter, and it is the number investors watch most on results day. Divide the share price by it and you get the P/E ratio; follow it over the years and you see whether the business is growing for each owner, not just in total.
For the S&P 500 as a whole, earnings per share over the last 12 months were about $295 (Jun 2026), counted in “index dollars”: the profit belonging to one unit of the index.
Example
Growing profit, shrinking slices
- Year 1: a company earns $1 billion and has 500 million shares. EPS = $2.00.
- Year 2: profit grows 10% to $1.1 billion, but the company issued 100 million new shares to buy another firm. EPS = $1.1 billion ÷ 600 million = $1.83: down, although the company earned more.
- Year 3: profit is flat at $1.1 billion, and it buys back 50 million shares. EPS = $1.1 billion ÷ 550 million = $2.00.
Total profit tells you about the company; EPS tells you about your slice of it.
One level deeper
Basic EPS divides the profit by the shares outstanding; diluted EPS also counts the shares that could be created from stock options and convertible bonds, so it is usually a little lower. The profit here is net income after taxes and after any preferred dividends.
Companies also publish adjusted (non-GAAP) EPS that leaves out one-off costs. It can be more useful, and it can also flatter, because the company decides what counts as one-off. The reported (GAAP) figure is the official one.
Profits swing with the business cycle. In the financial crisis, reported S&P 500 earnings per share fell 92%, from $84.92 in Jun 2007 to $6.86 in Mar 2009, as banks wrote off their losses. Over the long run they grow: since 1871, by 4.3% a year, or 2.2% after inflation.
S&P 500 earnings per share since 1871
Reported earnings of the last 12 months per unit of the index, as reported and in today’s dollars. On a log scale, steady growth is a straight line. After inflation, earnings grew about 2.2% a year: slowly but persistently, with deep dips in the 1930s and in 2008–09.
The numbers behind the chart
| Date | As reported | After inflation, in today’s dollars |
|---|---|---|
| Jan 1871 | $0.4 | $10.72 |
| Dec 1880 | $0.49 | $17.2 |
| Dec 1890 | $0.29 | $12.26 |
| Dec 1900 | $0.48 | $21.06 |
| Dec 1910 | $0.73 | $26.41 |
| Dec 1920 | $0.8 | $13.77 |
| Dec 1930 | $0.97 | $20.12 |
| Dec 1940 | $1.05 | $24.87 |
| Dec 1950 | $2.84 | $37.94 |
| Dec 1960 | $3.27 | $36.65 |
| Dec 1970 | $5.13 | $43.04 |
| Dec 1980 | $14.82 | $57.35 |
| Dec 1990 | $21.34 | $53.26 |
| Dec 2000 | $50 | $95.96 |
| Dec 2010 | $77.35 | $118 |
| Dec 2020 | $94.13 | $121 |
| Dec 2022 | $173 | $194 |
| Dec 2023 | $192 | $210 |
| Dec 2024 | $210 | $222 |
| Dec 2025 | $241 | $248 |
| Jun 2026 | $295 | $295 |
Why it matters
Over the long run, share prices follow earnings: a company whose EPS doubles is usually worth roughly twice as much.
It is the bottom half of the P/E ratio and of the payout ratio, so it sits under most stock valuations.
Beating or missing analysts’ EPS forecasts by a few cents can move a share price by several percent on results day.
A common mistake
Myth: Rising EPS means the business is growing.
In fact: Not always. EPS can rise because the company bought back shares with the same or even lower profit, or because of a one-off gain. Check total profit and revenue too.
Questions people ask
What is a good EPS?
There is no good level on its own: $2 is a lot for a $20 share and little for a $500 one. What matters is EPS compared with the price (the P/E) and whether it grows over time.
What is the difference between EPS and net income?
Net income is the company’s total profit; EPS divides it among the shares. A company can grow its net income while its EPS falls, if it issues many new shares.
Where do I find a company’s EPS?
In its quarterly and annual reports (10-Q and 10-K in the US), on the income statement, both basic and diluted. Our US stocks pages show it for every S&P 500 company, straight from the filings.
Read more on BigCapital
About the numbers
- The numbers on this page are recalculated from the data every night; the sources are listed at the end of the page.
- S&P Composite (price, dividends, earnings, CAPE), US consumer prices and the 10-year Treasury rate: Robert J. Shiller, Online Data (shillerdata.com).
- This page explains a term. It is not investment advice.