What is the EPS estimate and what does it tell you?

Question

Im a new trader and want to know what the EPS estimate is and what it is telling you. As per onthis website http://biz.yahoo.com/research/earncal/20070131.html

Answer 1

Skinny has his words mixed up. He is talking about a stocks price which changes day to day and intraday. The price determines the value of a company, what people are willing to pay for it.
EPS = earnings per share. One measure of the financial health of a company. Notice some had a minus "-" sign in front of them. They are losing money, which is not good, but not necessary bad. New small companies expect to lose money at first. So just to list one time periods (and the site does not say what period of time is involved) EPS does not tell you much. You need to know EPS for the past several quarters or years and see if the EPS is going down (bad) or up steadly (good). Compare with other companies in the same business. What it does tell you is if the company is over or under valued when compared to its peers. Historically, for the S&P500 stocks, over the past 50 years or so, people have been willing to pay $15 for stocks for every $1 in earnings (known as P/E ratio). Different industries have different average P/E ratios. Banks are priced more like 13 times earnings per share. Good tech. companies are generally higher that 15. Again compare P/E ratios with the companies peers to see about value. For more info check out www.investorwords.com

Answer 2

The EPS Estimate is the average opinion of Wall Street analysts think the earnings per share will be when the announcement is made that day. Generally if actual earnings beat the estimate, the stock jumps up. If earnings fail to beat the estimate, the stock drops.

It tells you what most reporting analysts think the growth prospects of the company's earnings are. If the estimate is 20% higher than the previous year's actual earnings, it means Wall Street is expecting the company to grow, or have grown, this year.

This figure is of great importance to short-term traders and means absolutely nothing to long-term investors. In the middle of those two are the nuts who drive the markets wild.

Answer 3

EPS
Earning per share=net profit/no of shares
it shows the company's performance

Answer 4

earnings per share...the change in value of the stock...if it say +.55 the shares value went up 55cents, and if it's negative it went down...these figures change on a daily basis even more so change throughout the day of trading...but it is the difference from what it closed at the day before to the day you are inquiring about.