Earnings Per Common Share

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2016

Basic earnings per common share for the Corporation is computed by dividing net income by the weighted average number of common shares outstanding during the period. Basic earnings per common share excludes any dilutive effect of common stock equivalents.

Diluted earnings per common share for the Corporation is computed by dividing net income by the sum of the weighted average number of common shares outstanding and the dilutive effect of common stock equivalents using the treasury stock method. Average shares of common stock for diluted net income per common share include shares to be issued upon the exercise of stock options granted under the Corporation’s share-based compensation plans, restricted stock units that may be converted to stock and stock to be issued under the deferred stock compensation plan for non-employee directors. For any period in which a net loss is recorded, the assumed exercise of stock options, restricted stock units that may be converted to stock and stock to be issued under the deferred stock compensation plan would have an anti-dilutive impact on the net loss per common share and thus are excluded in the diluted earnings per common share calculation.

The following summarizes the numerator and denominator of the basic and diluted earnings per common share computations:



	Three Months Ended March 31,
	2016		2015
	(In thousands, except per share data)
Numerator for both basic and diluted earnings per common share, net income	$	23,262	$	17,835
Denominator for basic earnings per common share, weighted average common shares outstanding	38,198		32,809
Weighted average common stock equivalents	323		235
Denominator for diluted earnings per common share	38,521		33,044
Basic earnings per common share	$	0.61	$	0.54
Diluted earnings per common share	$	0.60	$	0.54

The average number of exercisable employee stock option awards outstanding that were “out-of-the-money,” whereby the option exercise price per share exceeded the market price per share and, therefore, were not included in the computation of diluted earnings per common share because they would have been anti-dilutive totaled zero and 121,050 for the three months ended March 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively.