On January $1,2016,$ Albacore Company had $300,000$ shares of its common stock issued and outstanding. Albacore issued a $10\%$ stock dividend on July $1,2016.$ On October $1,2016,$ Albacore retired $12,000$ of its common shares. When calculating basic earnings per share for $2016,$ what is the appropriate number of shares for Albacore to use in the denominator of the EPS fraction?

a$.303,000.$

b$.342,000.$

c$.312,000.$

d$.327,000.$