Earnings Per Share

To find the earnings per share of a company, do the following:

1.) Go to: http://money.ca.msn.com/investing/

2.) Enter the ticker symbol of your chosen company in the “Name or Symbol” field (note “.to” is not required because Canada is listed as the market already)

3.) Click on Highlights under the Financial Results header in the left tool bar

4.) Earnings per share is listed fourth from the bottom in the table displayed.

Repeat for each of the five companies selected, and add the data to the table from Monday's blog:

Royal Bank of Canada (RY)
Net Profit Margin 13.60%
Earnings per Share 2.56

Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD)
Net Profit Margin 16.39%
Earnings per Share 3.49

Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS)
Net Profit Margin 25.32%
Earnings per Share 3.32

Bank of Montreal (BMO)
Net Profit Margin 16.84%
Earnings per Share 3.29

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CM)
Net Profit Margin 12.04%
Earnings per Share 2.65

So, if I was investing based on earnings per share only, TD would be my number one choice, followed by BNS.

If net profit margin and earnings per share were equally weighted, BNS would be my number one choice (ranking 1st and 2nd for net profit margin and earnings per share respectively), and TD would be my second choice, ranking 3rd and 1st respectively.

But you guessed it! If picking stocks was this easy, it wouldn't be much of a hobby or an activity. Tomorrow in hobby investing – revenue per share......stay tuned!