Net cash per share

Net cash per share takes a company's net cash position, its cash and short-term investments minus total debt, and divides it by diluted shares outstanding, showing how much cash cushion each individual share represents.

The formula is:

It's most useful compared against the share price itself. If net cash per share makes up a meaningful chunk of the stock price, part of what an investor is paying for is just cash sitting on the balance sheet rather than the operating business. A company with negative net cash per share carries net debt instead, meaning it has no such cushion, and would need to fund a downturn from its own operations or by raising outside capital.