Shares outstanding.
In plain English
Shares outstanding is the full count of a company's shares currently held by everyone: the public, insiders, and institutions. It is the denominator behind key figures, market value is shares outstanding times price, and earnings per share is profit divided by it. A related term, the float, is the subset of those shares actually available to trade, excluding locked-up insider and restricted holdings. A small float can make a stock more volatile, since fewer shares change hands. Shares outstanding can change when a company issues new stock, which dilutes owners, or buys back shares, which concentrates them.
01Why it matters
Shares outstanding drives market value and earnings per share, and changes in it dilute or concentrate your ownership, so understanding it is basic to reading what a stock is worth.
02The math, step by step
A company earns 100 million dollars with 50 million shares outstanding, so earnings per share is 2 dollars. If it issues 10 million new shares, the same profit spreads over 60 million shares, cutting earnings per share to about 1.67 dollars.
03What this is NOT
Shares outstanding is NOT the same as the float. Outstanding counts every share held by anyone; the float is only the freely tradeable subset, excluding locked-up insider and restricted shares.
04Receipts
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