The answer is d. By comparing earnings per share of a single corporation over time, a stockholder can evaluate the corporation's relative earnings...
Earnings per share (EPS) is a figure describing a public company's profit per outstanding share of stock, calculated on a quarterly or annual basis. EPS is arrived at by taking a company's quarterly or annual net income and dividing by the number of its shares of stock outstanding.
Earnings per share (EPS) is the portion of a company's profit allocated to each outstanding share of common stock. EPS (for a company with preferred and common stock) = (net income - preferred dividends) รท average outstanding common shares.
Earnings per share must appear on the face of the income statement if the corporation's stock is publicly traded. The earnings per share calculation is the after-tax net income (earnings) available for the common stockholders divided by the weighted-average number of common shares outstanding during that period.