How to Read Stocks Without Being an Investment Genius
submitted: Apr 29th 2008 |
by: CarlieEviee |
Total views: 2 |
Word Count: 337 |
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When you're first learning about the stock market, the stock tables in the paper can be quite confusing. Learning how to read stocks won't take much time, though, and it's very important.
To begin, you'll notice that there are about twelve columns across the table, and each stock has its own line. The first two columns (usually labeled something like "52W High" and "52W Low") are dealing with the stock's performance over the past year. "52W High" shows the highest point the stock has reached in the past 52 weeks, and "52W Low" shows the lowest.
The column after that you will discover the name of the stock and then the ticker symbol for that stock. You will probably recognize some of these from the tickers that run across the bottom of the screen sometimes on the cable news networks.
Speaking of which, watching the financial shows on these networks will give you further help on how to read stocks and other aspects of the stock market.
"Div" is the column that comes after the ticker column. From this column, you see how much in annual dividends the stock pays out for every share. You'll know the stock doesn't pay out dividends if this particular column is blank. The percentage return on the dividend shows up in the "Yield %" column, though it too will be blank if the stock doesn't pay out dividends.
P/E is the price to earnings ratio, which is calculated by taking the stock prices and dividing it by the the earnings per share over the last four quarters.
After that you will discover the columns of "High" and "Low." These are the highest and lowest points that the stock reached in the day's trading. "Net Change" refers to how much the stock price has changed from the previous day, and "Close" lets you know what the final price was when the stock market closed for the day.
With a basic understanding of how to read stocks, you can now move on and start learning more about the market itself.
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