EARNINGS PER SHARE

Basic earnings per share from continuing and discontinued operations is computed by dividing income from continuing and discontinued operations attributable to Snyder's-Lance, respectively, by the weighted average number of common shares outstanding during each period.

Diluted earnings per share gives effect to all securities representing potential common shares that were dilutive and outstanding during the period. In the calculation of diluted earnings per share, the denominator includes the number of additional common shares that would have been outstanding if our outstanding dilutive stock options had been exercised pursuant to the treasury stock method, or if our outstanding dilutive restricted units or performance-based restricted units had vested and converted to common stock. Anti-dilutive shares are excluded from the dilutive earnings calculation. No adjustment to reported net income is required when computing diluted earnings per share.

Unvested share-based payment awards that contain non-forfeitable rights to dividends or dividend equivalents are participating securities and are treated as a separate class of securities in calculating earnings per share pursuant to the two-class method. We have granted and expect to continue to grant restricted shares with non-forfeitable rights to dividends and restricted units with non-forfeitable rights to dividend equivalents. We include these awards in our calculation of basic and diluted earnings per share using the two-class method when we have undistributed income after considering the effect of dividends declared during the period. In the third quarter and first nine months of 2017, we did not have undistributed income and therefore did not include these awards in our calculation of basic and diluted earnings per share as computed in the table below:



	Quarter Ended					Nine Months Ended
(in thousands, except per share data)	September 30, 2017			October 1, 2016		September 30, 2017			October 1, 2016
Basic EPS:
Income/(loss) from continuing operations attributable to Snyder's-Lance, Inc.	$	(57,736	)	$	25,660	$	(42,263	)	$	23,239
Less: Income from continuing operations allocated to participating securities	—			41		—			—
Income/(loss) from continuing operations allocated to common shares	$	(57,736	)	$	25,619	$	(42,263	)	$	23,239
Weighted average shares outstanding – Basic	96,642			95,881		96,428			90,504
Earnings/(loss) per share – Basic	$	(0.60	)	$	0.26	$	(0.44	)	$	0.26

Diluted EPS:
Weighted average shares outstanding – Basic	96,642			95,881		96,428			90,504
Effect of dilutive stock options, restricted units and performance-based restricted units on shares outstanding	—			1,131		—			989
Weighted average shares outstanding – Diluted	96,642			97,012		96,428			91,493
Earnings/(loss) per share – Diluted	$	(0.60	)	$	0.26	$	(0.44	)	$	0.26

Due to the net loss incurred during the third quarter and first nine months of 2017, basic weighted average shares outstanding were required to be used for diluted earnings per share. This resulted in approximately 1.1 million and 1.2 million potentially dilutive shares for the third quarter and first nine months of 2017, respectively, and approximately 2.4 million anti-dilutive shares for both the third quarter and first nine months of 2017 excluded from diluted weighted average shares outstanding. There were approximately 0.3 million and 1.4 million stock options excluded from the calculation of diluted earnings per share for the third quarter and first nine months of 2016, respectively, because their effects were anti-dilutive.