Hittrafficer.com

Reading the stock tables in the newspaper can be very confusing when you’re just learning about the stock market. It’s important to learn how to read stocks, though, and it won’t take a lot of time.

There are twelve columns in the table, and you’ll notice that each stock has its own line in this table. To find out how the stock has been performing over the past year, look at the first two columns– these will be labeled something to the effect of “52W High” and “52W Low.” You’ll see the highest point the stock has achieved in the last 52 weeks in the “52W High” column. Its lowest value will be in the “52W Low” column.

The next column is the name of the stock itself, followed by another column showing the stock’s ticker symbol. Every stock is given a unique combination of letters. Perhaps you’ll even recognize a few (or more than a few) of these tickers. They periodically run across the bottom of the screen of 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.

Next to the ticker column is a column labeled “Div.” This indicates the stock’s annual dividend paid out per share. Many rows will have this column blank, which means they don’t currently pay out dividends. The same goes for the 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.

The next two columns are “High” and “Low.” In the day’s trading, you’ll be able to see the highest and lowest points that the stock has reached. “Close” is the point at which the stock closed that day, and “Net Change” shows the change from the day before.

You’ll be able to move on and learn even more about the stock market once you have a basic understanding of how to read stocks.