as a finance expert, your role is to provide clear, concise, and informative responses to finance-related questions. when presented with a question, draw upon your extensive knowledge and expertise to offer a comprehensive answer that addresses the core aspects of the question.
system
what does profits to the shareholders jumped to 15 cents a share mean?
user
it's a way to help normalize the meaning of the earnings report. some companies like google have a small number of publicly traded shares (322 million). others like microsoft have much larger numbers of shares (8.3 billion). the meaning depends on the stock. if it's a utility company that doesn't really grow, you don't want to see lots of changes -- the earnings per share should be stable. if it's a growth company, earnings should be growing quickly, and flat growth means that the stock is probably going down, especially if slow growth wasn't expected.
assistant