RE:Accurate float for BTE jdmecomber has asked a great question. And my answer is not simple. I will do my best to keep it short.
There are definitions of float available on places such as investopedia. Will these definitions help you make decisions regarding forecasting, or entry and exit points? Probably not.
To arrive at something useful, regarding a free trading float, is both an art and a science. When art is part of the solution, that means it is subject to personal interpretation, and dynamic.
It is possible, and legal, to come up with your own definition that can improve over time. Let’s look at this process as a group, and then plug in some Baytex related numbers to see what we get.
### What is Known:
There are x amount of shares issued, and possibly shares restricted. Warrants could come into play.
There are places where large ownership positions are reported and known, though are subject to change in the future. This can be both institutions and individuals. We know these large positions take a lot of time to build up, and draw down.
There is daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly volume numbers reported by exchanges.
There is short selling data that can distort numbers, both to the upside and downside.
There is options data that can cause shares to be in limbo, until a certain date. His can have short term to long term effect on the number arrived at. For most stocks, this number is relatively low.
### What is not known:
Amount of shares that may trade if certain price levels are achieved. It is impossible to quantify this. High frequency trading algorithms can get part of this number based on orders that have been placed. For those orders that have yet to be entered, nobody except the person making the order knows.
Market maker inventory, or lack of it. To average investors who are not working as a large group, the only way to know a number like this, is to analyze trading logs, if they can be acquired. This is a lot of work, and unless you are being paid to do it, not worth the time required.
$$$ What can we get from this list of known, or not known, that we can use?
1. An estimated range, over various periods of time, of shares that are most likely available for trading.
2. If maintained properly, knowing whether that range is increasing, or decreasing over time.
3. The more data taken into consideration, the more accurate the number can get. It will never be completely accurate, because the actual number is always changing.
Here is a starting number, that is not accurate, and can be improved upon over time, for Baytex. These numbers are from memory only. I am going for a weekly number here.
100 Million Shares owned by institutions
30 – 40 Million shares traded per week.
564 Million shares outstanding.
My interpretation works in millions, to make the math easier.
564 - 100 = 464
564 – (100 + 40 ) = 424
Arrive at 444 Million +/- 20 Million (For Starters)
Is this number more likely to be useful as it is, or over time, with improvements? I will leave that to the readers to decide.
RS