How to find out the amount of preferred stock of Coca Cola Company?
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. You can find this in the annual report. Preferred value is not the same as common value. "From The Coca-Cola Company website, section for Investors: Stock History, Issues Year 1919 Original issue -- 600,000 shares 100,000 preferred, par $100 each 500,000 common, without nominal or par value 1926 Eliminated 100,000 preferred in November. This means there were preferred shares issued in 1919. However, all preferred shares were ""eliminated"" (not sure what that means) as of 1926. There has been no subsequent reissuance of preferred shares of Coca-Cola since then. I think the company is still authorized to issue them, should they choose to do so in the future." They were issued in 1919 and eliminated in 1926. This means that Coca-Cola redeemed them in 1926 and either converted the preferred's to common stock or paid the preferred investor's back their full par value and took them off the books.
"You're missing a very important thing: YEAR END values in (U.S.) $ millions unless otherwise noted So 7098 is not $7,098.  That would be a rather silly amount for Coca Cola to earn in a year don't you think?  I mean, some companies might happen upon random small income amounts, but it seems pretty reasonable to assume they'll earn (or lose) millions or billions, not thousands. This is a normal thing to do on reports like this; it's wasteful to calculate to so many significant digits, so they divide everything by 1000 or 1000000 and report at that level.  You need to look on the report (usually up top left, but it can vary) to see what factor they're dividing by. Coca Cola's earnings per share are $1.60 for FY 2014, which is 7,098/4450 (use the whole year numbers, not the quarter 4 numbers; and here they're both in millions, so they divide out evenly).   You also need to understand that ""Dividend on preferred stock"" is not the regular dividend; I don't see it explicitly called out on the page you reference.  They may not have preferred stock and/or may not pay dividends on it in excess of common stock (or at all)." This. Best Buy doesn't sell cases of water...they are shrinkwrapped like this from the Coke distributor and meant to go in coolers by the registers and such. There was no price gouging here...hell, the price of the products might not even be set by Best Buy (they likely get a cut from Coca cola when they are actually sold).  But...they shouldn't have ended up on the floor like this in the first place, it just looks bad. The catch is that you're doing a form of leveraged investing. In other words, you're gambling on the stock market using money that you've borrowed. While it's not as dangerous as say, getting money from a loan shark to play blackjack in Vegas, there is always the chance that markets can collapse and your investment's value will drop rapidly. The amount of risk really depends on what specific investments you choose and how diversified they are - if you buy only Canadian stocks then you're at risk of losing a lot if something happened to our economy. But if your Canadian equities only amount to 3.6% of your total (which is Canada's share of the world market), and you're holding stocks in many different countries then the diversification will reduce your overall risk.  The reason I mention that is because many people using the Smith Maneuver are only buying Canadian high-yield dividend stocks, so that they can use the dividends to accelerate the Smith Maneuver process (use the dividends to pay down the mortgage, then borrow more and invest it). They prefer Canadian equities because of preferential tax treatment of the dividend income (in non-registered accounts). But if something happened to those Canadian companies, they stand to lose much of the investment value and suddenly they have the extra debt (the amount borrowed from a HELOC, or from a re-advanceable mortgage) without enough value in the investments to offset it. This could mean that they will not be able to pay off the mortgage by the time they retire! "Why ""lab meat"" is ""terrible""?   Do you know that cows, sheep, farm pigs, goats, chicken, etc are artificial animals that not one of them exist in nature? They are all genetically modified from some original 10,000 years ago (except the Turkey, discovered when America was discovered, and in less than 200 years, a farm-Turkey does not even resemble a wild Turkey.)  Do you prefer pregnancy, birth, labor intensive, antibiotics, diseases, feeding, slaughtering, butchering, etc involved in raising a cow until it becomes a hamburger on your plate?  Once people thought that Coca Cola, Cigarettes, etc are the best for them... because of Marketing.  With proper and simple truthful marketing, people would prefer lab meat compared to farm meat." "1. Most of the information you want can be found in the annual report of the company. Go to their official website, look for shareholders information and then download the annual report. This will answer: ""number of issued stock, voting rights, if there is more than one kind of stock, etc. In summary all the legal and formal details of a given stock. 2. After reading the annual report, check on investors websites to see if you can find analyst reports written on this company. You can sometimes find them in some free newsletters. These reports will complete the information you have found in the annual report like ""if the dividends are always paid, etc.""" Another way to decide would be to do a fair valuation of the company agreeable to both the partners. Lets assume when you started the company it was worth $10,000 and to acquire 75%, you must have put $7,500 worth of money and effort. Similarly, the other partner must have put $2,500 worth of time and money. Now say after 2 years, you both agree that company is worth $50,000. And say now the company needs $10,000 worth of investment. Whoever invests that money should get 20% (10k/50k) of the company. Or each $1,000 will buy 2% in the company. Post this investment the equity division would be  First investor (you) 75% of 80% = 60 % Second investor (your partner) 25% of 80% = 20% Third (new) investor = 20% Now, if you alone decide to put all the money you stake will be 60 + 20 = 80% and your partner will be reduced to 20%. If you guys want to maintain equity as it was (75-25), you need to put money in the same ratio ($7500 and $2500). If you do that- First investor 60% + 15% (for $7,500) = 75% Second investor 20% + 5% (for $2,500) = 25%. Please know for IP-centric company valuation is very subjective. But, do make an effort to do the valuation at every stage of the company so that you can put a number in terms of equity for each investment. authorized 100,000,000 shares They cannot issue shares more than that so 102M isn't possible. Common stock - $.01 par value, authorized 100,000,000 shares, issued 51,970,721 and 51,575,743 shares     If you look at the right 2 columns it become clear what it means. You missed the $ symbol and on the top (In thousands, except share amounts) ouststanding share 51,970,721 -> 520 On Sept 30, 2014 outstanding shares * 0.01 and rounded off to arrive at 520. ouststanding share 51,575,743 -> 516 On June 30, 2014 outstanding shares * 0.01 and rounded off to arrive at 516. I’m going to answer this because: Accounting books only reflect the dollar value of inventories. Which means if you look at the balance sheet of McDonalds, you will not see how many bags of French fries are remaining at their storage facility, you will only see the total value at cost basis.  Your requirement for noting the number of shares purchased is not part of the double entry accounting system.  When you transfer $10000 from bank to broker, the entries would be:  The bank’s name and the broker’s name will not appear on the balance sheet.  When you purchase 50 shares at $40 per share, the accounting system does not care about the number of shares or the price. All it cares is the $2000 total cost and the commission of $10.  You have two choices, either place $10 to an expense account, or incorporate it into the total cost (making it $2010).  The entries for the second method would be: Now your balance sheet would reflect: What happens if the price increases from $40 per share to $50 per share tomorrow? Do nothing. Your balance sheet will show the cost of $2010 until the shares are sold or the accounting period ends. It will not show the market value of $2500.  Instead, the Portfolio Tracker would show $2500. The most basic tracker is https://www.google.com/finance/portfolio .  Later if you finally sell the shares at $50 per share with $10 commission: Again, the number of shares will not be reflected anywhere in the accounting system. Only the total proceeds from the sale matters.