Personal finance: Ask the fool

What does EBITDA mean? - CD, by e-mail

Earnings Before Interest Tax Depreciation & Amortisation. It's quite a mouthful. Analysts sometimes use it to measure a company's underlying performance before financing, taxes and non-cash charges of depreciation and amortisation. It is a more direct indication of how it's doing. You'll probably be seeing more and more of EBITDA after the recent changes in amortisation reporting rules. (Amortisation simply means writing off the cost of an asset gradually over time.)

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