Way back in prehistoric times, before we had EV as a properly defined function, we had $EV, which left preferred equity and minority interest out of the calculation of EV. Not only that, but if a user used $EV and had defined it as a custom factor, it would default to the user’s definition. So two people using $EV could get two entirely different results, one from our informal definition and the other from his/her own. To make matters worse, the public Greenblatt ranking system used $EV rather than EV.
All this is being fixed tonight. $EV will be the same as EV unless users define it themselves, and the Greenblatt system will be based on EV rather than $EV.
If you want to keep the old version of $EV, put it in a custom formula as follows: MktCap + DbtTotQ - (CashPSQ * ShsOutMR). But the recommended definition will continue to be the EV factor.