How to Read Stocks Without Being an Investment Genius

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.

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.

By the way, watching some of the financial shows could be a good idea. It will further your knowledge even more on how to read stocks and understand the way the market works.

“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. 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.