After computing the current period's basic and diluted EPS figures, you notice that while basic EPS continues its upward trend, diluted EPS has dropped slighty. In discussions with your manager regarding reasons for the decline, you identify numerous potentially delutive securities that were considered in computing diluted EPS. Because th company has multiple dilute securities, those securities were considered in turn, beginningwith the convertible security that had the least favorable impact on EPS. As a result of considering the potentially dilutive securities in this order., convertible bonds that were potentially dilutive were not included in the computations because they became antidilutive after considering the effect of other convertible securities.
Your manager takes the position that if a security is dilutive when compared to basic EPS, then it should be included in the dilutive EPS computations. He maintains that each dilutive security should be considered independently of the others. Including these convertible bonds in the dilutive EPS computations would result in maintaining an upward trend for dilutive EPS.