Common Shares
Common shares will often pay out a portion of the earnings as dividends. The dividend yield is the total dollars (Yen, etc.) paid in a year divided by the spot price of the shares. Most web sites and reports are updated with the expected future year's payments, not the past year's.
The price/earnings ratio quoted for common shares is the reciprocal of what is called the earnings yield. EarningsPerShare / SharePrice.
Read more about this topic: Yield (finance)
Famous quotes containing the words common and/or shares:
“The difference between human vision and the image perceived by the faceted eye of an insect may be compared with the difference between a half-tone block made with the very finest screen and the corresponding picture as represented by the very coarse screening used in common newspaper pictorial reproduction. The same comparison holds good between the way Gogol saw things and the way average readers and average writers see things.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“If a dog doesn’t put you first where are you both? In what relation? A dog needs God. It lives by your glances, your wishes. It even shares your humour. This happens about the fifth year. If it doesn’t happen you are only keeping an animal.”
—Enid Bagnold (1889–1981)