Metric glossary
Last updated: July 27, 2026
39 metrics, each with the formula we actually use and the SEC XBRL concepts it is built from. Where a metric is an approximation of an industry-standard definition, that is stated rather than glossed over. For the pipeline behind these numbers, see the methodology overview.
Groups
Reading the source column. Names such as
OperatingIncomeLoss are US-GAAP XBRL concepts — the standardised
labels companies use to tag their own statements. You can look any of them up
in a company's filing on
SEC EDGAR
and find the same figure. Where several are listed, we try them in order and
take the first that reports a value for the period.
Per-share measures
Everything in this group is divided by a share count, which makes it the group most affected by stock splits and buybacks. Values are split-adjusted where we know the split — see the note on the methodology overview.
Revenue per Share
Revenue ÷ shares outstanding
Source Revenues, RevenueFromContractWithCustomerExcludingAssessedTax, SalesRevenueNet
Useful for spotting growth funded by share issuance: revenue can rise while revenue per share falls.
Basic EPS, GAAP
Reported directly by the issuer — not recomputed
Source EarningsPerShareBasic
We publish the GAAP basic figure as filed. We do not publish "adjusted" or non-GAAP EPS, because those are defined by the company rather than by the accounting standard.
Free Cash Flow per Share
(Operating cash flow − capital expenditure) ÷ shares outstanding
Source NetCashProvidedByUsedInOperatingActivities, PaymentsToAcquirePropertyPlantAndEquipment
Marked N/A for banks, insurers, REITs and utilities — see Paradigms.
Dividend per Share
Reported directly by the issuer — not recomputed
Source CommonStockDividendsPerShareDeclared, then CommonStockDividendsPerShareCashPaid
We prefer the declared rate. Many issuers stop tagging "Declared" at some point and report only "CashPaid", so we fall back to it rather than showing a gap.
Book Value per Share
Shareholders' equity ÷ shares outstanding
Source StockholdersEquity, CommonStockSharesOutstanding
Tangible Book Value per Share
(Equity − intangible assets − goodwill) ÷ shares outstanding
Source StockholdersEquity, IntangibleAssetsNetExcludingGoodwill, Goodwill
Strips acquisition accounting out of book value. For serial acquirers the gap against book value per share is the point.
Basic Weighted Avg Shares
Reported directly by the issuer — not recomputed
Source WeightedAverageNumberOfSharesOutstandingBasic
The denominator behind EPS. A falling series is buybacks.
Dividend Payout Ratio
Dividend per share ÷ basic EPS × 100
Source CommonStockDividendsPerShareDeclared, EarningsPerShareBasic
Above 100% means the dividend exceeded reported earnings in that period — common and not always alarming for REITs and cyclicals.
Income statement & cash flow
Absolute currency figures, taken from the filing rather than derived.
Sales / Revenue / Turnover
Reported directly by the issuer — not recomputed
Source Revenues, RevenueFromContractWithCustomerExcludingAssessedTax, SalesRevenueNet
Revenue has no single universal tag: issuers use different ones and change them between years. We try a priority list of tags and take the first that reports a value for the period.
Net Income, GAAP
Reported directly by the issuer — not recomputed
Source NetIncomeLoss, ProfitLoss and related fallbacks
Attributable to the parent where the distinction is tagged, so minority interests do not inflate the figure.
Operating Cash Flow
Reported directly by the issuer — not recomputed
Source NetCashProvidedByUsedInOperatingActivities
Depreciation Expense
Reported directly by the issuer — not recomputed
Source DepreciationDepletionAndAmortization, Depreciation
Profitability
Margins are ratios, so they are the most exposed to a mismatched denominator. Every margin here is bounded by a sanity check before it is stored — see "When we publish nothing" on the overview.
Operating Margin
Operating income ÷ revenue × 100
Source OperatingIncomeLoss
Banks and insurers do not file an operating-income line; for them we substitute a pretax-margin analog rather than leave a blank.
Profit Margin
Net income ÷ revenue × 100
Source NetIncomeLoss, Revenues
Effective Tax Rate
Income tax expense ÷ pretax income × 100
Source IncomeTaxExpenseBenefit, IncomeLossFromContinuingOperationsBeforeIncomeTaxes…
Meaningless when pretax income is near zero or negative, so we suppress it in those periods instead of printing a large number.
FCF Margin
Free cash flow ÷ revenue × 100
Source NetCashProvidedByUsedInOperatingActivities, PaymentsToAcquirePropertyPlantAndEquipment
N/A for banks, insurers, REITs and utilities.
FCF / Net Income
Free cash flow ÷ net income
Source NetCashProvidedByUsedInOperatingActivities, PaymentsToAcquirePropertyPlantAndEquipment
A cash-conversion check. Persistently below 1 means reported earnings are not turning into cash.
Balance sheet
Working Capital
Current assets − current liabilities
Source AssetsCurrent, LiabilitiesCurrent
N/A for banks and insurers, which do not present a classified balance sheet — there is no "current" split to subtract.
LT Debt
Reported directly by the issuer — not recomputed
Source LongTermDebt, LongTermDebtNoncurrent
Total Equity
Reported directly by the issuer — not recomputed
Source StockholdersEquity
Returns on capital
How much profit the business earns on the money invested in it — the group that tends to separate durable businesses from cyclical ones.
Return on Invested Capital
NOPAT ÷ invested capital × 100
Source OperatingIncomeLoss, IncomeTaxExpenseBenefit, StockholdersEquity, LongTermDebt
NOPAT is operating income after tax at the company's own effective rate. N/A for banks, insurers and REITs, whose capital structure breaks the assumption behind the ratio.
Return on Capital
Operating income ÷ total assets × 100
Source OperatingIncomeLoss, Assets
Return on Common Equity
Net income ÷ shareholders' equity × 100
Source NetIncomeLoss, StockholdersEquity
Read alongside leverage: buybacks that shrink equity raise ROE without the business earning more.
Leverage & coverage
Debt to Equity
Total debt ÷ shareholders' equity
Source LongTermDebt, ShortTermBorrowings, StockholdersEquity
Net Debt
Total debt − cash and equivalents
Source LongTermDebt, ShortTermBorrowings, CashAndCashEquivalentsAtCarryingValue
N/A for banks and insurers, where deposits and float are not "debt" in this sense.
Debt / EBITDA
Total debt ÷ (operating income + depreciation & amortisation)
Source LongTermDebt, OperatingIncomeLoss, DepreciationDepletionAndAmortization
N/A for banks, insurers and REITs.
Interest Coverage
Operating income ÷ interest expense
Source OperatingIncomeLoss, InterestExpense and related tags
N/A for banks and insurers, for which interest is a cost of goods sold rather than a financing charge.
Growth
Growth is computed from our own stored series, comparing like periods (annual against annual, quarter against the same quarter a year earlier) so a fiscal-calendar quirk cannot manufacture a growth spike.
Revenue Growth YoY
(Current − prior) ÷ prior × 100
Source Derived from the stored revenue series
EPS Growth YoY
(Current − prior) ÷ |prior| × 100
Source Derived from the stored EPS series
Shown as "N/M" (not meaningful) when the sign flips — growth from a loss to a profit has no percentage that means anything.
Net Income Growth YoY
(Current − prior) ÷ |prior| × 100
Source Derived from the stored net income series
N/M on a sign change, as above.
FCF Growth YoY
(Current − prior) ÷ |prior| × 100
Source Derived from the stored free cash flow series
N/M on a sign change. N/A for the paradigms where FCF itself is N/A.
Revenue CAGR 3Y / 5Y
((current ÷ value n years ago) ^ (1 ÷ n) − 1) × 100
Source Derived from the stored revenue series
Requires an actual observation n years back. If that year is missing we publish nothing rather than substituting the nearest year.
EPS CAGR 3Y
((current ÷ value 3 years ago) ^ (1 ÷ 3) − 1) × 100
Source Derived from the stored EPS series
Undefined if either endpoint is a loss; suppressed in that case.
Sector-native measures
Each of these is meaningful for exactly one business model and is hidden entirely everywhere else — a bank has no FFO, a REIT has no net interest margin. They are labelled "approx." where the public XBRL tags do not carry every input the industry-standard definition wants.
Net Interest Margin (approx.)
Net interest income ÷ total assets × 100
Source InterestIncomeExpenseNet, Assets
Banks only. The industry definition uses average earning assets; total assets is the closest thing consistently tagged in XBRL, so the level runs slightly low. The trend is still comparable.
Efficiency Ratio
Non-interest expense ÷ (net interest income + non-interest income) × 100
Source NoninterestExpense, InterestIncomeExpenseNet, NoninterestIncome
Banks only. Lower is better — it is a cost ratio, not a return.
Premiums Earned
Reported directly by the issuer — not recomputed
Source PremiumsEarnedNet
Insurers only.
Loss Ratio
Incurred losses ÷ premiums earned × 100
Source PremiumsEarnedNet, PolicyholderBenefitsAndClaimsIncurredNet
Insurers only. This is the loss ratio alone, not the combined ratio — it excludes expenses.
FFO (approx.)
Net income + real-estate depreciation & amortisation
Source NetIncomeLoss, DepreciationDepletionAndAmortization
REITs only. Simplified: the NAREIT definition also removes gains on property sales, which is not reliably tagged. Expect a difference against a REIT's own reported FFO in years with large disposals.
FFO per Share (approx.)
FFO ÷ weighted average shares
Source NetIncomeLoss, DepreciationDepletionAndAmortization, WeightedAverageNumberOfSharesOutstandingBasic
REITs only. Same caveat as FFO.
What the labels mean
- Blank — the filing does not give us this figure for this period. We do not estimate it.
- N/A — the metric does not apply to this kind of business. A bank has no Debt/EBITDA in any meaningful sense. See business models.
- N/M — not meaningful. Usually a growth rate across a sign change, where a percentage would be arithmetic without meaning.
- * — adjusted for a stock split, so the figure is stated on today's share base rather than the one in force at the time of filing.
- approx. — the public XBRL tags do not carry every input the industry-standard definition requires, so this is a close approximation. The specific gap is described in the metric's note above.