and understanding each step is important for putting the common-stock-outstanding number into proper perspective. First, the board of directors authorizes the company to issue a certain number of ...

Shares outstanding and floating stock are two types of metrics for investors. Although they refer to all classes of a company's common stock ... are the total number of shares issued by a company ...

To calculate earnings per share, divide a company’s annual or quarterly profit by the number of shares of stock it has outstanding. Note: If a company has both preferred and common stock ...

Analysts use variations of the basic EPS formula to avoid the most common ways that ... can game its EPS by buying back stock, reducing the number of shares outstanding, and inflating the EPS ...