Trailing twelve months (TTM)
The sum of the last four reported quarters, used to smooth seasonality and show a full year's figures.
Trailing twelve months, or TTM, is the sum of the most recent four reported quarters for a flow measure such as revenue, net income or free cash flow. It updates each quarter as the newest quarter is added and the oldest drops out. It is useful because a single quarter can be distorted by seasonality.
On our site, TTM figures are labeled and computed from quarterly reports. A company with a non-calendar fiscal year will show TTM figures that cover different months from a calendar-year company.
Traders care because TTM gives a full-year base for valuation and growth comparisons when quarterly data are noisy.
Worked example (illustrative numbers, not real data): quarterly revenue for the last four quarters is 240, 260, 250 and 270 million dollars. TTM revenue is 1,020 million dollars. If the prior year's TTM revenue was 900 million, TTM growth is 13.3 percent.