All companies must report their common stock outstanding on their balance sheet. The easiest way to ... finding its financial reporting, and opening up its most recent 10-Q or 10-K filing.

which can leave the door open for companies to potentially use subsidiaries, ownership investments, and joint ventures for fraud—oftentimes, off-balance sheet items are not transparent.

You can find information about a company's common stock in its balance sheet. Image source: Getty Images. Simply put, each share of common stock represents a share of ownership in a company.

Get access to your new suite of high-powered trading tools, including real-time stock ratings ... So if you can't understand the balance sheet, you probably shouldn't own it.” ...