Comprehensive income.
In plain English
Comprehensive income is the total change in equity from non-owner sources, combining net income with other comprehensive income, the items accounting rules route around the income statement. Other comprehensive income typically holds foreign currency translation adjustments, gains and losses on certain debt securities, some pension and post-retirement adjustments, and parts of certain hedges. These items accumulate in a separate equity line called accumulated other comprehensive income. Some are later reclassified into net income when the underlying position is sold or settled. Ignoring them can make reported earnings look steadier than the company's actual economics.
01Why it matters
A company with heavy overseas operations or a big pension plan can have equity moving by amounts that never appear in the earnings number most people quote.
02The math, step by step
Say net income is 40,000,000 dollars. Currency translation subtracts 6,000,000 dollars and unrealized securities gains add 2,000,000 dollars. Other comprehensive income is negative 4,000,000 dollars, so comprehensive income is 36,000,000 dollars, 10 percent below the headline earnings figure.
Illustrative example. The amounts here are hypothetical, chosen to show how the math works, not real quoted rates or figures.
03What this is NOT
Net income is the bottom of the income statement and the base for earnings per share. Comprehensive income adds items deliberately kept out of that line. Earnings per share is not calculated on comprehensive income, which is part of why the wider figure gets so little attention.
04Receipts
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Plain-English answers from our glossary. Receipts included. Never advice.
Educational tool. Answers come only from ClearMoneySchool's published glossary and are not advice. Why we never give advice