Change in the share count
Change in the share count is how much the number of shares grew or shrank over five and over ten years — whether an owner's slice of the company got bigger or smaller without them doing anything.
How it is computed here
| Formula | shares outstanding now ÷ shares outstanding n years ago − 1 |
|---|---|
| Unit | Ratio (shown as %) |
| Period | One fiscal year, as reported |
| Source | Extracted from SEC filings; every value on an asset page carries the accounting tag and the filing it came from |
| Identifier | variacao_acoes_5a |
What goes into the formula
| Shares outstanding, now | The count at the most recent fiscal year end. |
|---|---|
| Shares outstanding, five or ten years ago | The count as reported at the time, not restated. |
| A check for share splits in between | A ratio outside the range 0.5 to 1.5 between two consecutive reported years is treated as a split, consolidation or corporate event rather than as buying and issuing. Where one is found inside the window, this site publishes NOTHING rather than a number: the two ends are not measuring the same unit. |
A formula without its inputs explained is decoration. Where an input is missing from a filing, the metric is left empty here rather than completed with a zero or an estimate.
How to calculate change in the share count, step by step
Two companies over five years, one buying back and one issuing.
| Buyer — shares then, now | 1.20B → 1.00B |
|---|---|
| Issuer — shares then, now | 0.80B → 1.04B |
- Buyer: 1.00 ÷ 1.20 − 1 = −16.7%.
- Issuer: 1.04 ÷ 0.80 − 1 = +30.0%.
- An owner of the buyer who bought nothing now owns 20% more of the company; an owner of the issuer owns 23% less.
Result: −16.7% against +30.0% over the same five years
Neither shareholder placed a single order. The company did it for them, in one direction or the other, and it shows up in every per-share figure afterwards.
The figures in this example are illustrative and rounded — they are not a real company. The real figures on this site are the live ones below and on every asset page, each carrying the filing it came from.
What change in the share count is good for
Per-share growth is the most quoted measure of progress and the easiest to manufacture. This figure separates the two: profit that grew because the business grew, and profit per share that grew because the denominator shrank.
What this number does not tell you
The direction is not a verdict. Issuing shares to fund an acquisition that works is good for owners; buying back shares at a high price with borrowed money is not. The figure measures the dilution, not whether it was worth it. It is also blank for any company that split its stock inside the window — a deliberate silence, because the alternative is to publish a large positive number for a company that has been shrinking its share count for a decade.
Every metric on this site is published with its blind spot stated. A figure without its limit is half a fact.
Highest reported change in the share count
From the most recent fiscal year of each company.
See it in a published filing
These pages show the figure across up to nineteen fiscal years, with the accounting tag and the filing behind every value.