Rolling Earnings per Share

Rolling Earnings per Share

A publicly-traded company's profit over the previous two quarters added to its projected profit for the next two quarters, with the quantity divided by the number of shares outstanding. This is considered an important aspect in determining a share's price and value, because it takes into account both historical and expected factors. In general, the rolling EPS (like earnings per share more broadly) applies only tocommon shares. It is calculated thusly:

Rolling earnings per share = ((Net income from previous two quarters - Preferred dividends) + (Projected net income from two forthcoming quarters - projected preferred dividends) / Average shares outstanding.