What's the difference in between earnings and dividends?

Answer 1

I will provide an answer that relates to investments in stocks.

Earnings is what a company reports that they earned. There will be two numbers--total earnings and earning per share. Mostly, people are interested in earnings per share. Earnings however are subject to interpretation by the company reporting them, so the figure given ay or may not be what one might consider accurate. As was the case with World Com and Enron which in both cases exaggerated their earnings considerably. And they are probably not the only ones.

Dividends are of two types. Cash dividends--the best kind--and stock dividends, which is basically no dividend at all but merely a watering of the stock. Cash dividends are paid out of the cash flow of the company to the investors on a periodic basis, normally quarterly, but not necessarily. Sometimes companies will pay dividends even though they do not have the cash flow to cover the payment. REIT do that frequently in order to support the price of the stock. In that case it is called return of capital.

Answer 2

For a company, earnings are profit. What a company makes after all items are paid (salaries, cost of goods sold, facility costs, etc.). This is different than revenue (sales), which is just how much money was brought in.

Dividends are what a company can choose to pay to investors/shareholders. These can come at any frequency. They are a way of rewarding shareholders for holding the company stock. They are not required. Some companies don't give dividends so that they can use the money to increase the business, which should increase the share price.

Answer 3

Earnings is the revenue earned by a firm from its operations and dividends are typically the returns that it gives to its shareholders from the profits.

Answer 4

Earnings is as it says; what a person earns through employment. Dividends is income from other sources such as interest payments from any account, stock & bonds income, etc.