Replies to post #23150 on NEWBIES BOARD

[DebbieDowner69]

A/S (authorized shares) are the total number of shares that are authorized by the company to be issued.

O/S (outstanding shares) are the total number out of the A/S that are issued to both insiders, restricted parties, and retail investors (you and I). These are voting shares.

Float is the number of shares out of O/S that are "in play" for retail investors (you and I).

If the float is less than 1/2 of O/S, then that means that insiders can out vote retail investors. This is important because if insiders have enough shares to out vote retail investors then they can change the share structure w/o approval.

Often times when you look at "market capitalization" (read: what the company is worth) people are multiplying share price times the float. However, if insiders can unilaterally out-vote retail investors due to float not being 50% of O/S then that means the company can dilute the shares of the float since they can either move more shares from A/S to O/S or increase A/S overall.

Generally speaking, decreases in A/S in SEC filings is a good thing, since that means that the ability to dilute is decreased.

Please, someone more wise than I, correct anything I said incorrectly or did not explain well enough.

[Garyst]

Looks like your question was answered. As for how many is too many? There is no definitive answer but I usually consider a low float stock one that has say 30 or 70 million shares available. That is pretty small. Those that have billions are usually those in the triple 0's. Usually 1-2 billion is common and higher than that is high but if the volume is there it certainly can move upward. All about supply and demand. If the supply is huge, there has to be a huge demand to absorb them to raise the pps.