Tracking Your Investments
Stock tables offer critical current information about stock prices. In order to monitor your stock investments accurately, it is vital that you become adept in understanding stock tables. Stock table information may vary slightly among different publications and websites, but the basic information is generally presented in a similar manner, with the stocks listed alphabetically.
There are a few things you should know about stock tables. For one, the date on a stock table is the date on which the trading activities occurred, not necessarily the date on which the information was published. Additionally, you will need to learn some stock table terminology, including the following:
High-low. This is usually the first column in a stock table. It shows the highest and lowest prices for which the stock was traded over the past fifty-two weeks.
Company symbol. This column lists the ticker symbol (the abbreviated name) of the corporation that issued the stock.
Dividends. This column includes the dividends the corporation pays to its shareholders.
Volume (abbreviated VOL). This column tells you how many shares were traded that day, in multiples of 100.
Yield (abbreviated YLD). This column estimates the dividend yield, which is calculated by dividing the dividend (as listed in the Dividends column) by the closing price (as listed in the Close column).
Price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio. This column shows you the P/E ratio, which is calculated by dividing the share price by the corporation's earnings per share.
Close. This column indicates the last price at which the stock was traded during the day.
Net Change (abbreviated Net Chg). This column records the difference between the previous day's closing price and the current day's closing price, measured in dollars.
