Core earnings

Core earnings.

Core earnings report the performance of a corporation's core business operations, including producing and marketing the primary goods or services it sells, the cost of granting stock options, restructuring charges for ongoing operations, and meeting pension obligations.

Equally important, core earnings exclude gains in the value of a company's pension account portfolio, certain one-time sources of income, such as the sale of an asset, and goodwill.

In developing this measure, Standard & Poor's intention was to provide investors with a uniform, more transparent way to compare earnings across companies.