Reconciling Market Capitalization with Share Counts and Share Prices
Summary
The document addresses a discrepancy between a listed company’s market capitalization and a calculation using a quoted share price multiplied by a share count. The response identifies a likely unit and field-selection issue: market capitalization should be compared with the share count and price that correspond to the same company listing, currency, and reporting basis. It illustrates the calculation using Bloomberg’s market-cap field in millions of pounds and the matching outstanding-share and price figures.
The example shows that multiplying precise terminal values gives a result consistent with the reported market capitalization, while rounded or differently timed webpage values produce a nearby but not identical amount. The practical lesson is to check the market-cap heading, units, share-count definition, and quote timestamp before treating a discrepancy as an error. The document is a single-company illustration, not a general data-source comparison, and it does not assess differences such as free-float versus total capitalization or share classes across exchanges.
Key ideas
- Market capitalization is calculated from share price and the relevant shares outstanding.
- Compare values in matching currencies and units, such as millions of pounds.
- Rounded or asynchronous price and share-count figures can cause small discrepancies.
- Check that the reported market-cap field and share-count definition refer to the same basis.
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# Calculating company-level market capitalisations from share quantities and values # Calculating company-level market capitalisations from share quantities and values I want to calculate company-level market cap values for stock exchanges listed by Bloomberg. I gather this can be calculated as the product of share price and the total of shares in circulation. But this approach does not seem to add up: for example the London Stock Exchange's data on FTSE100 members (see their 'List of All Companies') gives a £9,521.4 million cap value for Pearson, but calculating for this company from Bloomberg stats yields £2,796m (£1,331.00 * 2.1m shares). Can anyone possibly clarify what the LSE figure is based on? I'm not an economist or finance expert but need reliable data on company cap values around the world. I'd prefer to get this centrally from somewhere like Bloomberg than interrogate 50+ exchange websites! So alternatively it would be really helpful to know of a better way to get this data. Thanks in advance. ## Answer by sets (score 4, accepted) https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/8574 I think you are misinterpreting the data. Right now, looking at Bloomberg webpage, the Market Cap of Pearson is 11.142,56(M). This figure has been obtained looking at the heading Market Cap (M GBP). Alternative, if you go through the Number of Shares x Share Price route, using the same Bloomberg webpage, you obtain: Shares Outstanding (M) x Current Share Price = 817.50 (M) * £13,65 = 11.158.88(M), which is a similar figure. In fact, the difference is likely due to the fact that Bloomberg webpage is not reporting real time or exact figures for Shares Outstanding and Current Share Price. Looking at a Bloomberg terminal, the number of shares outstanding is 817.502.853, and the current share price is £13,63, which yield a Market Cap of: 11.142.564.453 or 11.142,56 millions. So in short: yes, you can obtain Market Caps directly from the Bloomberg webpage, but you need to look at the correct heading.
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