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How To Read Stocks Without Being An Investment Genius
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.
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.
Let’s look closer at the table. You’ll notice that there are twelve columns in the table; each stock has a line of its own. Let’s examine the first two columns, which are usually named something like “52W High” and 52W Low.” These tell you about the stock’s performance over the last year. The names are pretty suggestive; “52W High” reveals the highest value the stock has reach in the past 52 weeks. Its lowest value shows up in the “52W Low.”
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 TV, you might want to watch the financial shows. They can give you a lot of help and information that will show you how to read stocks and understand the stock market even better.
There’s another column next to the ticker column, and it’s labeled “Div.” This column shows you the annual dividend the stock pays out for each share. If you see a blank space in this column, that means the stock doesn’t pay dividends right now. The same rule also applies to the very next column, “Yield %”, the percentage return on the dividend.
P/E is the price to earnings ratio. Dividing the current stock price by earnings per share for the last four quarters gives you this number.
“High” and “Low” are the next two columns. You’ll be able to see the lowest and highest point the stock has reached in the day’s trading. “Net Change” shows the change from the day before; “Close” tells you the point when the stock 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.