What are outstanding shares?

You can also find information on a company’s total outstanding shares by searching the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval System (EDGAR), which is operated by the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC). Companies issue different types of shares of equity, the largest and most common type being common shares. Common shares represent ownership interest in a company, and they typically come with voting rights and cash flow (dividend) rights.

• Adam received his master’s in economics from The New School for Social Research and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in sociology.
• Companies may issue different classes of shares, the most common being “common” or “ordinary shares.” The different types of shares denote different rights for the shareholder.
• We follow strict guidelines to ensure that our editorial content is not influenced by advertisers.
• The total number of issued shares is the sum of the outstanding shares and the treasury shares.

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This is important to know because the number of shares outstanding can be far lower than the number of shares issued. This is followed by the number of issued shares and then the number of shares outstanding. And so our company has a basic share count of 100 million — but a diluted share count of 205 million (100 million basic + 5 million options and warrants + 100 million in shares from the $500 million in convertible debt).

Are More Shares Outstanding Good or Bad?

The content created by our editorial staff is objective, factual, and not influenced by our advertisers. Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy, so you can trust that we’re putting your interests first. The offers that appear on this site are from companies that compensate us. But this compensation does not influence the information we publish, or the reviews that you see on this site. We do not include the universe of companies or financial offers that may be available to you. The life of common stock goes through a few phases, and understanding each step is important for putting the common-stock-outstanding number into proper perspective.

• It also offered 3,000 shares to each of the two managing directors and has 5,600 treasury shares.
• If a company buys back its own stock, those repurchased shares are called treasury stock.
• The corporation decides to hold the 1,000 shares “in treasury” instead of retiring the shares.
• When this takes place, a company’s outstanding shares increase, and a higher degree of liquidity results.

The profit and loss statements in nearly every corporate earnings press release will include both basic and diluted shares outstanding. Ownership of a corporation can be measured by identifying which investors were issued shares at a company’s startup or via a secondary offering. Ownership may also be measured by counting issued and outstanding shares, along with those that may become issued if all authorized stock options are exercised, which is known as the fully diluted calculation. Investors can look at any number of metrics to make their investment decisions. When it comes to stocks, a company’s outstanding and floating shares can provide some very important information about the organization.

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However, these stock benefits are not included in the tally of shares outstanding until shares are fully issued. Shares outstanding are used to determine a company’s market capitalization, i.e. the total value of a company’s equity, or equity value. Thanks to the SEC, common stock outstanding is very easy to calculate All companies are required to report their common stock outstanding on their balance sheet. Do that by navigating to the company’s investor-relations webpage, find its financial reporting, and opening up its most recent 10-Q or 10-K filing. Let’s say that Helpful Fool Company has bought back 500 shares in this year’s buyback program. The company now has 5,000 authorized shares, 2,000 issued, 500 in treasury stock, and 1,500 outstanding.

Can Float Be Higher Than Shares Outstanding?

This can often be found in a company’s financial statements, but is not always readily available — rather, you may see terms like “issued shares” and “treasury shares” instead. Besides, it can be helpful to understand where the numbers you’re looking at came from. 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 chart below shows how each is calculated using outstanding shares.

Definition of Common Stock Outstanding

For a blue chip stock, the increased number of shares outstanding due to share splits over a period of decades accounts for the steady increase in its market capitalization and concomitant growth in investor portfolios. Of course, merely increasing the number of outstanding shares is no guarantee of success; the company has to deliver consistent earnings growth as well. A company’s outstanding shares decrease when there is a reverse stock split. A company generally embarks on a reverse split or share consolidation to bring its share price into the minimum range necessary to satisfy exchange listing requirements. While the lower number of outstanding shares often hampers liquidity, it could also deter short sellers since it becomes more difficult to borrow shares for short sales. The number of shares issued and outstanding shares will differ, if the issuing company has purchased some of its own stock.

What’s the Difference Between Shares Issued and Outstanding Shares?

Outstanding shares are the shares in the hands of the public, executives and employees. They are the number of shares actually owned by the company’s shareholders. A company is limited to issuing only the quantity of shares it’s authorized to issue. Issuing more breaches compliance with securities laws and regulatory agencies will often consider the excessive issuance of improperly authorized shares as void. Authorized shares that have not yet been issued may be set aside as reserved shares.

Authorized shares, meanwhile, are the maximum number of shares a company can issue, based on its corporate charter. Bankrate follows a strict
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Outstanding Shares and Share Repurchase Programs

It’s always a smaller figure because it only counts the number of shares available for investment and trading on financial exchanges. Assume that a state has authorized a corporation to issue 100,000 shares of common stock. The corporation has issued 20,000 of those shares to investors and received $2,000,000. At this point, the corporation has 20,000 shares issued and outstanding. Later, one of the common stockholders sells 1,000 of its shares back to the corporation for $150,000. The corporation decides to hold the 1,000 shares “in treasury” instead of retiring the shares.