Originally Posted by
buscappy
possibly. but "the number of shares" is not a specific enough concept. there are authorized shares, issued shares, outstanding shares, treasury shares, and probably other categories I can't think of right now. when the co buys back outstanding shares, they become treasury shares, and possibly the divisor in eps (ie, num of shares) stays fixed. but, the share price (and multiple of eps) might still go up because investors like dividends and share buybacks
corp fin is more complicated, and complex, and case-by-case, than can be fully covered or understood on a pilot forum. that's why teams of i bankers and securities lawyers work 2500 hrs a yr on the stuff
but to the OP, yes, eps has everything to do with our eventual ps deposit in March
You can sit here and argue that "eps has everything to do with our eventual ps deposit in March", but that's simply not true. You can use it as a wag, but that's about it. Too many variables.
Our profit sharing has EVERYTHING to do with pre-tax profit(PTP) and pre-tax margin(PTM). Specifically, 10% of PTP up to a PTM of 6.9% goes into the ps pool. 20% of PTP that is above PTM of 6.9% goes into the pool.
So if you want to get a bit closer to a real guess, you need to look at pre-tax profit for each quarter.
A quick glance at ir.united.com shows our performance thru the 2nd Q to be about 17% lower than 2015. I'm just looking at Income before Taxes.
So to those who think we'll get 17-18% vs. last year's 13%......keep on dreaming.