Using EPS#Positive

I was thinking about using EPS#Positive to create a Graham like universe of stocks that have a long history or positive earnings.

The description of EPS#Positive is “This value is the number of consecutive years that the company reported positive Earnings Per Share starting with the most recent fiscal year.”.
So I suppose the logic for it looks for companies that have:
EPSExclXor(0,ANN)>0 and EPSExclXor(1,ANN)>0 gives EPS#Positive>0

I created a simple screen to visualize this:
https://www.portfolio123.com/app/screen/summary/134536?st=1&mt=1

If you sort by @EPS#Positive , lowest to highest, you will see:

@EPS#Positive=1 => EQR that has a EPSExclXor(0,ANN)>0 and EPSExclXor(1,ANN)<0 but EPS8,9,10 are positive. Is it looking at EPS8-10? If yes, shouldn’t it be a 2 instead of 1?

@EPS#Positive=2 => GT that has a EPS0-3 are positive (four years including current). Should it be a 3?

@EPS#Positive=3 => EA that has a EPS0-2 are positive. Should it be a 2?

Can someone explain how this works?
thank you.


David,

Year 0 counts too, so EQR and EA are fine. That’s because EQR only had positive EPS for 1 year in a row (the most recent one) and EA has had positive EPS for three years in a row now; in years 0, 1 and 2.

GT looks like a error.

Chaim

Hmm. Since it said consecutive years, I did not think it included year zero in the count. I appreciate the quick feedback.