Cash flow checks

    Cash flow per share

    Operating Cash Flow per Share

    Cash flow per share is operating cash flow divided by the number of shares. Set next to EPS, it shows how much of each share's reported profit actually arrived as cash.

    Formula

    Cash flow per share

    Cash Flow per Share = Cash Flow from Operations ÷ Number of Shares

    Gap to watch

    EPS − Cash Flow per Share

    Benchmark: Should track EPS closely; a persistent shortfall is the CFO to PAT problem per share

    Reading the number

    EPS is booked profit per share. Cash flow per share is cash received per share. In a company with honest accounting and prompt-paying customers the two move together and the gap is small and random. A gap that is large, or that grows every year, means sales are being recorded that are not being collected.

    It is the same test as the five-year CFO to PAT check, expressed per share so it can be read straight off a stock's summary page and used in the price to cash flow ratio.

    Indian example

    Related ratios

    Earnings per sharePrice to cash flow ratioCFO to PAT ratio

    Glossary terms

    From the research

    Valuation

    A Comparative Financial Analysis of Three Listed Companies

    Three IT services leaders, five years of numbers: similar growth, very different margins and returns on capital, and their October 2026 valuations.

    Markets

    IPO Issue Price vs. Listing Price vs. Subsequent Performance

    Seven of India's most talked-about IPOs since 2021, tracked from issue price to listing to October 2026. Buying on listing day lost money in six of seven.

    Valuation

    Paytm: Valuing a Company With No Clean Comparable

    Paytm is part payments processor, part device business, part loan distributor. Why no single peer fits, and how to value it in parts and in reverse.