Dividends over the entire year, not including any special dividends but including interim dividends, must be added together to arrive at this figure. Special dividends are only expected to be issued once and so are omitted. Interim dividends are dividends distributed to shareholders that have been declared and paid before a company has determined its

We do this for each underlying fundamental item, and then we build the ratios on that basis so that, for example, Price to CashFlow becomes Price to Cashflow TTM. Where needed, we also calculate the Prior TTM value for year on year comparisons, which we call PTTM. Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer