What is Shares Out?
Shares Outstanding is the total number of shares that have been issued by the company and are currently held by all shareholders, including institutional investors, insiders, and the public.
Think of it like this
Think of it like slices of a pizza. If the company is the whole pizza, shares outstanding tells you how many slices the pizza has been cut into. More slices means each slice represents a smaller piece of the company.
Formula
Total shares issued and held by all shareholders- Total Shares: All shares issued by the company
Why it matters
- Determines your ownership percentage
- Used to calculate market cap (Price × Shares)
- Important for per-share metrics like EPS
- Changes indicate dilution or buybacks
What's a good value?
< 100M
Small Float
Can be more volatile
100M-500M
Medium Float
Balanced liquidity
500M-2B
Large Float
Good liquidity
> 2B
Very Large
Highly liquid, mega-cap
Real-world example
Apple: 15.3B shares (mega-cap). Tesla: 3.2B shares (large float). Small biotech: 50M shares (can be volatile). The number itself doesn't indicate value - a $10 stock with 1B shares = $10B market cap.
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