ELi5: Why do financial commentators sometimes refer to Earnings/share instead of Price to Earnings ratio?

Question

The PE ratio is the same as Current Price / Earnings-per-share (EPS). So why do financial commentators sometime refer to EPS and require the viewer to do some mental arithmetic to get to the PE ratio?

Afterall only the PE ratio is comparable to other companies – EPS is not comparable because every stock has a different price.

In: 3

Answer 1

Companies report total earnings and earnings per share. A company’s financials are concrete numbers, vs. P/E ratio that’s a constantly moving number based on stock fluctuation.