How to calculate outstanding shares

Outstanding shares are the total number of common stocks owned by investors. This 800 is divided into 600 (shares held by the public) + 200 (restricted shares held by company insiders). The total number of issued and treasury stock includes both common and preferred stock available in the company balance sheet. In the above example, if the reporting periods were each half of a year, the resulting weighted average of outstanding shares would be equal to 150,000. Thus, in revisiting the EPS calculation, $200,000 divided by the 150,000 weighted average of outstanding shares would equal $1.33 in earnings per share.

Most companies include copies of their annual reports on their investor relations webpages. If I decide to split my company into 1,000 pieces, and then I sell all 1,000 pieces, I might not own my company anymore. So, the company will keep some of the shares and then issue the remaining shares for sale. So in the last example, instead of issuing all 1,000 shares for sale, I might only issue 400 shares of stock for sale, and I would keep the remaining 600 authorized shares of stock. Outstanding shares, or common stock outstanding, are the total amount of shares in a corporation that can be traded publically. This is important information to know for investors so that they have an idea of the true value and amount of tradeable shares there are in a given company.

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If that’s the case, congratulations, you don’t need to do any calculations. But usually you will need to pull several numbers from the balance sheet in order to calculate the total outstanding shares formula. A company’s number of shares outstanding is used to calculate many widely used financial metrics. Market capitalization — share price times number of shares outstanding — and EPS are both computed using a company’s number of outstanding shares.

You can find a company’s earnings per share by dividing the company’s profit by its outstanding shares of common stock. You may be thinking to yourself – why do I care about learning how to calculate issued and outstanding shares; I know how many shares I own, isn’t that enough? While knowing how many shares you own is helpful, your company’s capitalization table (“cap table”) is critical when raising money and understanding exactly how equity is allocated. Now, let’s imagine that you’ve obtained the company’s recent annual report, and you want to verify this number. In the equity section of the balance sheet, you might see common stock listed with a value like $1,000,000, and a note indicating that this represents 100 million shares. This confirms that there are indeed 100 million shares outstanding, as calculated.

Definition of Outstanding Stock

These companies aggressively fund their growth by using convertible debt and paying employees with stock incentives. By contrast, many older stalwart companies are likely to have a number of shares outstanding that matches its number of shares fully diluted. In the end, as the number of outstanding shares decreases by 1,000, the company’s EPS increases by 6.89%. The number of authorized shares can be substantially greater than the number of shares outstanding since authorized shares represent the maximum possible number of shares a company can issue. The outstanding number of shares may be either equal to or less than the number of authorized shares. For example, a company might authorize 10 million shares to be created for its IPO, but end up actually only issuing nine million of the shares.

Based on the given information, Calculate the number of shares outstanding of the company. In other words, shares outstanding indicates the number of shares of a company available at the open market. Over time, as a company issues more stock options, the firm’s total number of shares outstanding will increase due to employees exercising their options. The major difference between outstanding and issued shares is that outstanding shares are the shares available with the shareholder at a given period after excluding treasury shares.

Authorized vs. Issued and Outstanding Shares

This by no means implies that increasing the number of these shares leads to guaranteed success. First, the company has to do its job and have strong, consistent financial performance, delivering constant earnings growth. Generally speaking, stocks with smaller floats will experience more volatility than those with larger floats. These statements are available on companies’ investor relations pages or the SEC website. The information is also available on stock data websites like Stock Analysis. Evaluating the trend of this number provides useful insights to investors.

• At the end of it all, the number of outstanding shares decreased by 1000 shares while earnings per share increased by 6.89%.
• The number of authorized shares is the maximum number of shares that the company can issue to shareholders without going through the process of amending the articles of incorporation to authorize more.
• To find floating stock, start with the number of shares outstanding and subtract restricted shares owned by executives and employees.
• If there is a difference between the number of shares issued and outstanding, the difference is treasury stock.
• The information contained in this article is for general purposes only and not a complete disclosure of every material fact.

The article does not warrant the completeness or accuracy of the information and disclaims all liabilities, losses and damages arising out of the use of this information. Readers shall be fully liable/responsible for any decision taken on the basis of this article. Want to put your savings into action and kick-start your investment journey 💸 But don’t have time to do research? Invest now with Navi Nifty 50 Index Fund, sit back, and earn from the top 50 companies.

Shares Outstanding Vs. Treasury Shares

It is pretty common for a company to restate the articles of incorporation to authorize additional shares when necessary for an equity financing round. The company may increase the number of authorized shares of common stock or create new classes of preferred stock. It is an important consideration, however, as some jurisdiction charge franchise How to calculate shares outstanding taxes based upon the number of shares authorized. Also, if a company has a certain capitalization, it may need issue a certain number of shares to create the desired value per share being issued. While outstanding shares are those held by shareholders and insiders, the float is the number of shares that are available for trading.

The whole point of companies going public is to raise money and for investors to achieve financial gains. At the time, GE discussed plans to split into three companies and to divest from many businesses. They determined that reducing their share count from nearly 8.8 billion to roughly 1.1 billion better aligned with this vision (1). You can find shares outstanding at the top of a company’s 10-Q or 10-K filing. Importantly, the number of shares outstanding is dynamic and fluctuates over time. When you buy stock in a company, you are buying an ownership stake, which is issued as a share of stock.

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As such, you would calculate the common stock equivalency for purposes of determining the total number of shares issued. The actual amount of stock that is willing to sell is generally less than the amount authorized and is called issued stock. The issued stock that is sold and is held by stockholders is called the outstanding stock. The company can buy back any amount of outstanding shares, and this reacquired stock is then called treasury stock. You figure the amount of outstanding stock by subtracting the number of treasury shares from the number of issued shares.

This will determine the maximum number of shares of stock it would like to authorize. It will include this information in its charter or articles of incorporation. Overall, the number of shares outstanding, the metrics you can calculate from it, and related metrics — like the float — provide key insights to investors.

While shares outstanding account for company stock that includes restricted shares and blocks of institutional shares, floating stock specifically refers to shares that are available for trading. Floating stock is calculated by taking outstanding shares and subtracting restricted shares. Restricted stock are shares that are owned by company insiders, employees and key shareholders that are under temporary restriction, and therefore cannot be traded. As noted above, outstanding shares are used to determine very important financial metrics for public companies. These include a company’s market capitalization, such as market capitalization, earnings per share (EPS), and cash flow per share (CFPS). The number of shares outstanding increases when a company issues additional shares or when employees exercise stock options.

In the US, public companies are obligated to report their number of shares outstanding as part of the SEC’s filing requirements. Stocks that have a smaller float are generally more volatile than stocks with a larger float due to their limited availability. Investors may demand more shares than are available, resulting in the price of the shares increasing. The float gives valuable information to investors, like how a company may proceed in the future if it determines it needs more money or the ownership structure of the company. In this scenario, the company is trying to create an appearance of rapid growth in earnings per share to appear like a solid investment opportunity. A widely held opinion is that when these companies are repurchasing shares, they tend to do it when they have a lot of cash.

You will find the total number of outstanding shares listed on your company’s balance sheet under the “Capital Stock Issued and Outstanding” heading. You can also calculate the number of outstanding shares by adding the total number of preferred stock shares to the total number of common stock shares, and then subtracting the total number of treasury shares. Other methods for determining outstanding share totals include looking at the company’s market capitalization, earnings per share (EPS), or cash flow per share (CFPS). “Issued shares” are a company’s authorized shares that are sold to shareholders, including those sold and held by company founders and insiders, institutional investors, and the general public.