Shares outstanding is the total number of shares a company has released to the public and its insiders, including employees, executives and founders. These shares are also referred to as issued ...

Here's what you need to know about the different share counts that publicly traded companies use, as well as how you can calculate the number of outstanding common shares.

When a company calculates its earnings over a certain period of time, it divides its profits by the number of outstanding shares.

Shares outstanding include those held by shareholders and company insiders while floating stock represents only the shares available to trade.

How to Calculate Outstanding Shares To calculate shares outstanding, a company would subtract the number of shares held in its treasury by the total number of shares it has issued.

Outstanding Shares Explained Outstanding shares are the total number of shares held by institutional investors, individual investors and entities associated with the company.

Outstanding shares reflect the total share count of a company's stock. Investors can find a company's number of outstanding shares reported on its financial statements.

Float and shares outstanding are two ways to measure shares of a stock. Floating stock is measured by taking the total shares outstanding and subtracting closely-held shares.

Outstanding shares refer to a company's stock currently held by all its shareholders. It includes share blocks and restricted shares, but not treasury shares.

By calculating a company's weighted average number of outstanding shares, we can get a more accurate picture of its earnings.

At the beginning of the year, the company has 100,000 shares outstanding but issues an additional 50,000 halfway through the year, for an ending total of 150,000.