I understand that if they create additional shares and sell them, the number of outstanding shares will increase. What about the opposite? Would they buy some stocks and then just "delete them"? What is the exact mechanism of doing that?
And the second question is what source can I use it to get the "exact" number of outstanding shares up to date? Because I'm trying to do extensive research regarding this and looked up Microsoft's number of outstanding shares and EVERY WEBSITE showed slightly different numbers and it's driving crazy. Any help would be appreciated.