Southern is a holding company. Through its subsidiaries, Alabama Power Company, Georgia Power Company, and Mississippi Power Company, each of which is an operating public utility company, Co. provides electric service to retail customers in three Southeastern states in addition to wholesale customers in the Southeast. Co. also owns Southern Company Gas, which is an energy services holding company whose primary business is the distribution of natural gas in four states, Illinois, Georgia, Virginia, and Tennessee, through the natural gas distribution utilities. Southern Company Gas is also involved in several other businesses that are complementary to the distribution of natural gas. We show 38 historical shares outstanding datapoints in our SO shares outstanding history coverage, used to compute SO market cap on those dates.
Understanding the changing numbers of shares outstanding, the changing
share price, and the resulting changing SO market cap history over the course of time is important for investors
interested in comparing SO's market cap history versus its peers.
Many "beginner" or "novice" investors will look at one stock trading at a price of $10 per share and another trading at
a price of $20 per share and think the latter company is worth twice as much. Of course, that is a completely meaningless comparison without also knowing how many shares outstanding there are for each of the two companies,
and then calculating their respective market caps. Comparing the share price of SO versus a peer is one thing; comparing
SO market cap versus a peer is a completely different story.
Furthermore, via fluctuation both in per-share price and in the number of shares outstanding (via issuance of new shares over time, the repurchase of existing shares),
the market cap for a company like SO can fluctuate over the course of history.
With this page we aim to empower investors researching SO by allowing them to research the SO market cap history. |
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Video: The Importance of Market Cap
