How to Calculate Stock Prices From a Balance Sheet

Investor compares the current stock price to the stock's financial reporting documents.
Image Credit: Prasit photo/Moment/GettyImages

Stock prices are not arbitrary, and anyone can learn how to find share prices from balance sheets issued by the corporation in question. You can use this report, which publicly traded companies must issue annually, to determine an organization's worth and, therefore, its accurate stock price. You can learn how to find market value per share in annual reports. You can use that information to determine what to pay for stocks or a company's worth.

Advertisement

How to Find Market Price Per Share Using a Balance Sheet

Video of the Day

Start by calculating the organization's total stockholder equity holdings; the experts at Accounting Tools mention that this figure should include common stock, preferred stock, retained earnings and any additional paid-in capital. If the figure isn't readily available, you'll need to calculate the total common stockholder's equity. To do that, find the total stockholder equity holdings and subtract the total preferred stock value from it. The difference between preferred and common stock is that anyone holding preferred stock has shareholder voting rights while common stockholders do not. In most organizations, there is more common stock available than preferred.

Advertisement

Video of the Day

To find the market price per share of common stock, divide the common stockholders' equity by the average number of outstanding common stock shares. You should also be able to find that number on the balance sheet. For example, if a corporation's total common stockholder equity is ​$8.6 million​ and its average outstanding common stock value is ​$200,000​, the market price per share would be ​$43​ because ​$8,600,000​ divided by ​$200,000​ is ​$43​. You can use this method for how to calculate stock price after acquisitions or during any period of transition.

Advertisement

Consider also:How to Calculate the Original Price Per Share

How Is Stock Price Calculated in Real-Time?

Of course, more figures into the real-time price of a stock, which is often determined more by supply and demand than anything. An organization's reputation and public perception factor into that. More importantly, a company's plans for expansion, a new product announcement or even public relations events can affect the stock price. For example, Apple tends to have its stock price go up after they announce a new iPhone model.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Still, that's why a share price calculator is so helpful. If you're considering buying a stock, you can refer to the organization's balance sheet to calculate how the current price of a share of stock compares to the market price per share. This calculation can help you more accurately assess the value of a company and whether investing is a good idea.

Advertisement

There are many terms used when discussing stock prices and values. One of them is fair value. The writers at Valentiam Group explain that fair value is the agreed-upon price between the seller and buyer. Fair value is not an arbitrary measurement, as calculating fair value considers both the organization's assets and liabilities.

Advertisement

Consider also:How to Calculate Stock Growth Rate

How to Calculate Stock Price With Dividend

The expert educators at the Corporate Finance Institute explain that you can use a specific model known as the dividend discount model (DDM) as another way to calculate the value of a stock. This model utilizes mainly quantitative methods. It supposes that the actual value of a share of an organization is equal to the total of all of its future dividend payments after they're discounted back to the present value.

Advertisement

Advertisement

DDM is most beneficial for determining whether a stock's current price is undervalued or overvalued, which can help you determine if you should buy or sell an investment. There are multiple ways to analyze a stock's value, and all of them are useful for determining what you should pay or how much you should sell. You can use all of the methods described to study stocks from multiple angles, using the results of all of them to decide on an investment strategy.

Consider also:How to Calculate Stock Price Volatility

Advertisement

Advertisement

references