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)
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