ShmoopTube

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finance a la shmoop what are trailing earnings here are the trailing earnings

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for whatever dot-com 23 cents 32 cents 41 and 52 cents and a quarter quarter [Trailing earnings figures appear]

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quarter quarter yeah here's where we are on the timeline today we just finished

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the first quarter of the new year to print that lovely 52 cents a share in [Shares printing]

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earnings well the stock of whatever.com is trading at a hundred bucks a share

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and tons of nervous Nellie investors are pulling out their hair over the very [Hair falls on floor]

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high multiple that this stock is trading at so the trailing earnings of whatever

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dot-com were well let's just add him up here in 23 32 41 52 totals a buck 48 [Share prices appear]

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that's a dollar forty eight in trailing earnings so the years trailing earnings

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of the company were a buck 48 and that means that at $100 a share with no cash

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and no net debt to worry about here the company is trading at a hundred divided

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by a dollar forty eight or about sixty seven times earnings there's nothing

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funky going on in the balance sheet here whatever dot-com has a little bit of [Man holding a balance sheet]

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cold cash and no debt so 67 times trailing earnings here is a huge

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multiple it's a multiple of trailing earnings but look at the trend in

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earnings growth the company has stated that it thinks it'll keep growing at [Growth percentage bar chart appears]

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quote about this pace for the foreseeable future

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unquote so if we do a little estimating then forward earnings might see them

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print something like go I don't know 64 cents then 80 cents and 95 cents and a

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buck 12 or something like that well if we add up those subsequent forward [Quarterly earnings appear]

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quarterly earnings numbers we get $3 and 51 cents a share in earnings so wait a

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minute we just came to the conclusion with the nervous Nellie's that this [Stop sign appears]

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stock was so expensive when they were thinking about it as a hundred times

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earning stock but on the projected forward earnings of 3.51 a share not a

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hundred bucks it's trading at 100 divided by three point five one or about

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twenty eight times earnings just a tad more than while say Bank of America or [Logos appear]

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caterpillar Tractor or coca-cola but whatever dot-com is growing earnings at

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like ten times faster pace than those old stalwart

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companies they're a lot more risk that whatever dot-com misses its earnings

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numbers yes absolutely but if it hits the 3.51 and then goes on to earn oh no

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six bucks and then ten bucks a share in the subsequent years well the hundred [Whatever.com share price on graph]

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dollars a share price here will look like a bargain in the rearview mirror so

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that's what trailing earnings are all about you pick a spot in time and look [Calendar appears]

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at the previous and I'll say four quarters earnings and then you think

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about what multiple of that number of the stock is trading at and then map

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that to future prognostications if the company is really growing this fast well [Whatever.com tree appears]

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then even though it's multiple on trailing earnings might be high while on

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forward earnings it might be low may be a bargain

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just ask Amazon about this one they wrote the book on the trailing earnings [Amazon graph of stock price]

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and guess where you can buy that book

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