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Bridge over ocean
1 March 1999 Financial Analysts Journal Volume 55, Issue 2

The Effects of Blending Primary and Diluted EPS Data

  1. Ralph P. Goldsticker
  2. Pankaj Agrrawal

Companies are now reporting basic and diluted, rather than primary and fully diluted, earnings per share. And a number of vendors changed from providing only primary EPS to providing only diluted EPS. They are also providing growth rates calculated from a blend of primary and diluted EPS. The growth rates calculated from a blended earnings stream will be lower than growth rates calculated from only primary or only diluted earnings, and the more years that are blended, the greater the reduction in the growth rate. The average differences in growth rates calculated from the various combinations of primary and diluted earnings are not large enough to be a cause for concern, but at the company level, blending earnings can produce growth rates that are substantially different from those produced when only primary or only diluted EPS are used.

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