Consistent pullulation in earnings...

Consistent pullulation in earnings per share ("EPS") is single of the primary indicators of "quality growth" and "quality management." Managers who can improve EPS consistently over several years are generally considered to be doing a well adapted job for shareowners.

Companies that manage to put forth EPS during tough economic times are particularly notable and make interesting candidates for studying with the aid of the Stock Selection Guide and Stock Tracking Guide.

A convenient way to identify companies that manage to bourgeon EPS is to use a computer to search a database.

Various "on-line" financial databases are available to investors with a computer and a modem You can dial-up these databases and search for companies that suited any screening criteria that you wish to specify.

Alternatively, you can purchase a database available forward computer diskettes such as that produc by means of Stock Guide Publications Inc. we asked the proprietor, Marcel Longpre to veil his database of about 1000 companies for those whose habitual shares met five EPS produce criteria.

The riddles reflect EPS data available for the latest three fiscal years ending May 13 1995

Screen I

Companies whose fiscal-year EP (before extraordinary items) were positive for each of the past three years (418 companies survived this screen)

Screen 2

Surviving companies with EP each year greater than the previous year (220 companies survived this screen)

Screen 3

Surviving companies whose EP bourgeoning for the most recent fiscal year was greater than the EP pullulation for the previous fiscal year (81 companies survived this screen)

Screen 4

Survivors that had a mingle EPS annual growth rate of 10% or more (75 companies survived this screen)

Screen 5

Companies that survived shield 4 because of "unusual" items were exclud from the list existinged in the accompanying Table. In addition, sum of two units companies were excluded because their EP was $010 or les for the chiefly recently completed fiscal year.

In total, sole 64 companies survived these five guards It is interesting to note that when similar defences were reported in the July/August 1994 issue of the Canadian Shareowner, 72 companies made the cut

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Copyright Canadian Shareowner Magazine Inc. Jul/Aug 1995

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