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Trailing twelve months (TTM)
Also called: TTM, LTM, last twelve months
The sum of the last four reported quarters, giving an annual figure that updates every quarter instead of once a year.
Explanation
Annual reports go stale quickly: by the time a 10-K is nine months old, it says little about the current business. TTM fixes that for flow measures such as revenue, net income and cash flow by adding up the four most recent quarters. Balance-sheet items such as cash or debt are not summed; for those you use the latest value.
Companies do not always report the quarter you need. A 10-K reports the full year and 10-Q cash-flow statements are year-to-date, so the fourth quarter is usually derived (full year minus nine months), and the second and third by subtraction too. Semi-annual reporters, including many foreign issuers, have no quarters at all; for them TTM is the last two halves.
Why it matters
TTM is the most current honest annual figure: it smooths seasonality while staying within a quarter of the latest report.
How Equity Dictionary measures it
TTM is the sum of the last four contiguous single quarters (gaps of 10 days or less); when those are not available, the latest annual value stands in, and semi-annual filers use the last two halves. Derived quarters are marked † in the Financials tab.
Related terms
- XBRL: The machine-readable tags SEC filers attach to every number in their financial statements, so software can read financials without parsing documents.
- Burn rate: How fast a company uses up cash, usually measured as operating cash outflow per quarter or per month.
- Free cash flow (FCF): Operating cash flow minus capital expenditures: the cash a business generates, or consumes, after paying to maintain and grow its assets.
- Form 10-K and 10-Q: The annual (10-K) and quarterly (10-Q) reports US public companies file with the SEC, containing their financial statements and management’s discussion.
Plain-English summary for research; not legal or investment advice.