What's the difference between shares outstanding and regular shares?
outstanding shares are the shares(regular shares) that are still tradable in the market, where the firm in question is listed. The term is primarily used to distinguish from shares held in treasury(treasury stock), which have been bought back(buybacks) from the market and aren't currently tradable in the market. Wikipedia is a bit more clearer and mentions the diluted outstanding shares(used for convertible bonds, warrants, etc) which is used to calculated diluted EPS.
I believe, I could be wrong, it has been a long day. By exercising this right you have the right to purchase the equivalent of their current share.  Eg. Someone owns 50 of 100 shares. and the company does a rights offering and is expanding the shares to 200. That person has first right to purchase 50 more shares to keep his share from being diluted. It's not quite identical, due to fees, stock rights, and reporting & tax obligations.  But the primary difference is that a person could have voting rights in a company while maintaining zero economic exposure to the company, sometimes known as empty voting. As an abstract matter, it's identical in that you reduce your financial exposure whether you sell your stock or short it.  So the essence of your question is fundamentally true.  But the details make it different.  Of course there are fee differences in how your broker will handle it, and also margin requirements for shorting.  Somebody playing games with overlapping features of ownership, sales, and purchases, may have tax and reporting obligations for straddles, wash sales, and related issues.  A straight sale is generally less complicated for tax reporting purposes, and a loss is more likely to be respected than someone playing games with sales and purchases. But the empty voting issue is an important difference.  You could buy stock with rights such as voting, engage in other behavior such as forwards, shorts, or options to negate your economic exposure to the stock, while maintaining the right to vote.  Of course in some cases this may have to be disclosed or may be covered by contract, and most people engaging in stock trades are unlikely to have meaningful voting power in a public company.  But the principle is still there. As explained in the article by Henry Hu and Bernie Black: Hedge funds have been especially creative in decoupling voting rights from economic ownership. Sometimes they hold more votes than economic ownership - a pattern we call empty voting. In an extreme situation, a vote holder can have a negative economic interest and, thus, an incentive to vote in ways that reduce the company's share price. Sometimes investors hold more economic ownership than votes, though often with morphable voting rights - the de facto ability to acquire the votes if needed. We call this situation hidden (morphable) ownership because the economic ownership and (de facto) voting ownership are often not disclosed. The shortest-hand yet most reliable metric is daily volume / total shares outstanding.  A security with a high turnover rate will be more efficient than a lower one, ceteris paribus. The practical impacts are tighter spread and lower average percentage change between trades.  A security with a spread of 0% and an average change of 0% between trades is perfectly efficient. "What you need to do is go to yahoo finance and look at different stock's P/E ratios. You'll quickly see that the stocks can be sorted by this number. It would be an interesting exercise to get an idea of why P/E isn't a fixed number, how certain industries cluster around a certain number, but even this isn't precise. But, it will give you an idea as to why your question has no answer. ""Annual earnings are $1. What is the share price?"" ""Question has no answer""" "Treasury stock is not really represented in the Balance Sheet as a ""Treasury stock"" line item in the assets.  Some companies will break out Treasury Shares as a line item in the ""Shareholders Equity"" heading of the balance sheet but Apple hides it in the ""Shares Issued and Outstanding"" counts under the ""Shareholders Equity"" heading.  As of the most recent Q2 2017 quarterly report There are 5,205,815,000 shares issued against 5,336,166,000 shares outstanding.  This indicates that Apple is retaining about 130,351,000 shares in treasury. On the Q1 10-Q you can see that Apple had 5,255,423,000 shares issued which indicates roughly 49mm shares were repurchased by the end of Q2.  You can roughly verify this by looking at page 18 of the Q2 filing in the summary of the share repurchase program.  Repurchased as part of an Accelerated Share Repurchase arrangement bleeds between quarters but from February 2017 through May 2017 there have been 17.5mm shares repurchased.  31mm shares were also repurchased on the open market in Q2.    The ""shares issued"" total is on a downward trend as part of Apple's share repurchase initiative that has been underway for the last couple of years." "The best place to start looking is the companies ""Balance Sheet"" (B/S).  This would show you the total shares ""outstanding."" The quarterly B/S's arent audited but a good starting point.  To use in any quant method, You also need to look a growth the outstanding shares number. Company can issue shares to any employee without making a filing.  Also, YOU will NEVER know exactly the total number because of stock options that are issued to employees that are out of the money arent account for. Some companies account for these, some dont.  You should also explore the concepts of ""fully dilute"" shares and ""basis"" shares. These concepts will throw-off your calc if the company has convertible bonds." I'm going to guess that you found this because of a stock screener.  This company went through a 1:20 reverse split on June 30, so every 20 shares outstanding became a single share.  Where before you had 20 shares worth $100 you now have 1 share worth $100, the value of the company doesn't change because of a split.  This company was never trading for $30+ per share.  Reverse splits are typical of a floundering company trading on an exchange that has a minimum share price requirement.  While reverse splits don't change the value of the company, just the number of shares outstanding and the price per share, no healthy company performs a reverse split.  Reverse splits are generally a massive signal to jump ship... The company seems to be trading for $1 right now, why the value fell from a pre-split $1.65 ($33/20) to $1 is anyone's guess; how the company ever got to $1.65 is also anyone's guess. But looking at the most recent 10-Q there are numerous causes for concern:  Note 2. Capital Stock On March 6, 2017, the Company issued as compensation for services provided a total of 650,000 common shares with a fair value of $390,000 to a third party. The fair value of the shares was based on the price quoted on the OTC pink sheets on the grant date. this indicates a share price of $0.60 ($390,000/650,000) as of 3/6/2017, just to reinforce that the google price chart doesn't show the true past but a past adjusted for the split Results of Operations The three months ended March 31, 2017 compared to the three months ended March 31, 2016 For the three months ended March 31, 2017 compared to the three months ended March 31, 2016, total revenues were $0 and $0, respectively, and net losses from operations were $414,663 and $26,260, respectively. The net losses were attributable to costs attributable to operating as a public company, in particular, common stock with a valuation of $390,000 that was issued to an investor relations firm in the first quarter of 2017. Going Concern As of March 31, 2017, there is substantial doubt regarding our ability to continue as a going concern as we have not generated sufficient cash flow to fund our proposed business. We have suffered recurring losses from operations since our inception. In addition, we have yet to generate an internal cash flow from our business operations or successfully raised the financing required to develop our proposed business. As a result of these and other factors, our independent auditor has expressed substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern.    Liquidity and Capital Resources We had no cash as of the date of March 31, 2017. Additionally, since there is no balance sheet in the last 10-Q (another bad sign), the last annual report 10-K has this balance sheet: So the company: So why did the stock value plummet? It's anyones' guess but there is no shortage of ways to justify it.   In fact, it's reasonable to ask how is this company still worth $3mm ($1 * 3mm shares outstanding)... I also reckon the tax situation is a relevant difference. I'd rather take shares over a wage when, you know, I'm not / minimally taxed for capital gains, at a rate way lower than what I should be paying for the equivalent as income tax. "The formulae #issued shares = #outstanding shares + #treasury shares looks right. However it looks like the Treasury Shares are treated as -ve in accounting books and thus the outstanding shares are more than issued shares to the extent of Treasury shares. Further info at ""Accounting for treasury stock"" on wiki" The price of a share has two components: Bid: The highest price that someone who wants to buy shares is willing to pay for them. Ask: The lowest price that someone who has a share is willing to sell it for. The ask is always higher than the bid, since if they were equal the buyer and seller would have a deal, make a transaction, and that repeats until they are not equal. For stock with high volume, there is usually a very small difference between the bid and ask, but a stock with lower volume could have a major difference. When you say that the share price is $100, that could mean different things. You could be talking about the price that the shares sold for in the most recent transaction (and that might not even be between the current bid and ask), or you could be talking about any of the bid, the ask, or some value in between them. If you have shares that you are interested in selling, then the bid is what you could immediately sell a share for. If you sell a share for $100, that means someone was willing to pay you $100 for it. If after buying it, they still want to buy more for $100 each, or someone else does, then the bid is still $100, and you haven't changed the price. If no one else is willing to pay more than $90 for a share, then the price would drop to $90 next time a transaction takes place and thats what you would be able to immediately sell the next share for. Coca Cola doesn't seem to have any preferred shares outstanding. From the annual report, it does say that the number of common shares outstanding was 2,294,316,831 as of February 22, 2011. (cover page, right before the horizontal break) But normally, you can find it either toward the beginning of the document or in the statement of shareholder's equity. Shareholders are the equity holders. They mean the same thing.  A simplified formula for the total value of a company is the value of its equity, plus the value of its debt, less its cash (for reasons I won't get into). There are usually other things to add or subtract, but that's the basic formula. Is it normal for such transactions to create new outstanding shares? Yes a company can create new shares or a Majority share holder can sell some of his stake or it can be a mix of both. how will this news affect the short-term and long-term price of the company's stock? This is opinion based and not apt for this site. It can be positive or negative depending on how the market reacts to the news. I haven't seen any of the other answers address this point – shares are (a form of) ownership of a company and thus they are an entitlement to the proceeds of the company, including proceeds from liquidation. Imagine an (extreme, contrived) example whereby you own shares in a company that is explicitly intended to only exist for a finite and definite period, say to serve as the producers of a one-time event. Consider a possible sequence of major events in this company's life: So why would the shares of this hypothetical company be worth anything? Because the company itself is worth something, or rather the stuff that the company owns is worth something, even (or in my example, especially) in the event of its dissolution or liquidation. Besides just the stuff that a company owns, why else would owning a portion of a company be a good idea, i.e. why would I pay for such a privilege? Buying shares of a company is a good idea if you believe (and are correct) that a company will make larger profits or capture more value (e.g. buy and control more valuable stuff) than other people believe. If your beliefs don't significantly differ from others then (ideally) the price of the companies stock should reflect all of the future value that everyone expects it to have, tho that value is discounted based on time preference, i.e. how much more valuable a given amount of money or a given thing of value is today versus some time in the future. Some notes on time preference: But apart from whether you should buy shares in a specific company, owning shares can still be valuable. Not only are shares a claim on a company's current assets (in the event of liquidation) but they are also claims on all future assets of the company. So if a company is growing then the value of shares now should reflect the (discounted) future value of the company, not just the value of its assets today. If shares in a company pays dividends then the company gives you money for owning shares. You already understand why that's worth something. It's basically equivalent to an annuity, tho dividends are much more likely to stop or change whereas the whole point of an annuity is that it's a (sometimes) fixed amount paid at fixed intervals, i.e. reliable and dependable. As CQM points out in their answer, part of the value of stock shares, to those that own them, and especially to those considering buying them, is the expectation or belief that they can sell those shares for a greater price than what they paid for them – irrespective of the 'true value' of the stock shares. But even in a world where everyone (magically) had the same knowledge always, a significant component of a stock's value is independent of its value as a source of trading profit. As Jesse Barnum points out in their answer, part of the value of stocks that don't pay dividends relative to stocks that do is due to the (potential) differences in tax liabilities incurred between dividends and long-term capital gains. This however, is not the primary source of value of a stock share. It seems like you want to compare the company's values not necessarily the stock price.  Why not get the total outstanding shares and the stock price, generate the market cap.  Then you could compare changes to market cap rather than just share price.