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How To Read A Stock Quote
Stock quotes come in a variety of shapes and sizes, depending on where you find them. Newspaper quotes tend to contain less information than those found on Internet financial sites because of space constraints.
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In the past, stock prices were quoted in fractions. Now, prices are quoted in dollars and cents (known as "decimalization").
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The first table below, for a fictional company, shows information typically found in a newspaper stock quote, expressed in dollars and cents. The second shows information about the same company as it might be found on a financial Web site, using fractions. Below each is an explanation of what the different symbols mean.
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Newspaper Stock Quote for Spacely Sprockets |
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52 Wk |
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Hi* |
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Low* |
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Stock |
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250.0625 |
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45.0625 |
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Spcly Sprkts |
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YLD |
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Div* |
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%* |
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PE* |
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N/A |
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N/A |
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113.89 |
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Sales |
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100s* |
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High* |
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Low* |
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Last |
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Chg |
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14360 |
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51.375 |
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47.875 |
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49.6875 |
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-1.5625 |
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* Statistics which may be omitted if newspapers don't have the space |
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52 Wk Hi -- $250.0625 -- The highest price that shares reached in the past year, working back from the current date.
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52 Wk Lo -- $45.0625 -- The lowest price (in dollars) that shares reached in the past year, working back from the current date.
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Stock -- Spcly Sprkts -- The name of the company, abbreviated.
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Div. -- N/A -- The amount of dividend paid per share, displayed in dollars and cents. Dividends are commonly paid quarterly. Spacely Sprockets does not pay dividends.
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YLD % -- N/A -- If Spacely Sprockets did pay dividends, this number would represent the dividend yield. This is calculated by dividing the annualized dividend by the share price. You can compare this with bond yields, a common investment benchmark.
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PE -- 113.89 -- This is the price-to-earnings ratio. This key measuring stick is calculated by dividing the share price by the year's projected earnings. This value is often compared against that of other shares to see how well a company is performing. Even if a company doesn't pay a dividend, earnings per share are calculated when a company issues its quarterly reports. Typically, these earnings are reflected in the share price of the company
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Sales 100s -- 14360 -- This shows the number of shares traded for the day, in hundreds. On this day, 1,436,000 shares of Spacely Sprockets stock were exchanged.
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High -- $51.375 -- The highest price that Spacely Sprockets shares reached for the trading day.
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Low -- $47.875 -- The lowest price that Spacely Sprockets shares reached for the trading day.
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Last -- $49.6875 -- The closing price of Spacely Sprockets shares.
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Chg -- -1.5625 -- The amount that share prices changed from the previous day's closing price. A minus sign before the numbers indicates that the shares closed lower. A plus sign or lack of a sign indicates that shares closed higher. In this case, Spacely Sprockets shares fell one dollar and fifty-six-and-a-quarter cents from the previous day's close.
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Typical Internet Stock Quote |
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Spacely Sprockets, Inc. (SPRK) |
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Last |
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49.6875 |
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Open |
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50.35 |
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Change |
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-1.06 |
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Previous Close |
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50.13 |
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% Change |
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-3.05% |
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Bid |
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49.68 |
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Volume |
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1.436 Mil |
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Ask |
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49.75 |
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Day's High |
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51.37 |
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52 Week High |
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250.06 |
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Day's Low |
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47.87 |
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52 Week Low |
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45.06 |
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Avg. Volume |
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12.024 Mil |
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P/E |
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113.89 |
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5Market Cap |
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27.747 Bil |
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Earnings/Share |
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0.45 |
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# Shares Out |
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558.4 Mil |
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Dividend/Share |
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NA |
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Ex-Div. |
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NA |
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Current Div. Yield |
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NA |
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Exchange |
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NASDAQ |
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Spacely Sprockets Inc. (SPRK) -- The name of the company followed by its ticker symbol (official abbreviation). Stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange use ticker symbols of one to three letters. Stocks traded on the Nasdaq predominantly use four letters.
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Last (or Close) -- The most current price per share, or, if the trading day is over, the closing price per share. The price per share in this case is $49.6875.
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Change -- How much the current price has changed from the previous day's closing price. A minus sign before the change shows that the price is lower than the previous day's close.
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% Change -- How much the share price has changed from the previous day's closing price, in percentage terms. This can be a helpful alternate way of measuring performance. For example if you own a stock that trades at 50 cents a share and the price rises to $1 a share, that's a 100 percent increase. However, if a stock trading at $5 a share rises 50 cents to $5.50 a share, that's only a 10 percent increase.
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Volume -- The number of shares traded for the day, in millions. Many investors watch this figure to see if interest in the stock is increasing or waning.
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Day's High -- The highest price at which shares traded for the day.
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Day's Low -- The lowest price at which shares traded for the day.
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Avg. Volume -- The average number of shares traded per day over a fixed number of days. Typically, average volume is calculated over 30, 60 or 90 trading days. The Wall Street Journal, a widely respected provider of market information, bases it on the previous 65 trading days.
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Open -- The price at which shares first traded for the day. If you had bought Spacely Sprockets stock at the opening price of 49.35 and sold it at the closing price of 49.56, you would have made a profit of 21 cents per share.
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Previous Close -- The closing price from the previous trading day. The change (defined above) is compared to this value. With the advent of after-hours trading, a variety of closing prices are now being used in the stock trading industry. Some firms or news organizations use a closing price at 4 p.m. Eastern time, the end of the New York Stock Exchange trading day. Some firms use a closing price at 6 p.m., the end of the after-hours trading session.
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Bid -- The price investors are offering to buy a share. In less-heavily traded issues, it's common for this price to be slightly lower than the "ask" price (the price sellers want), because most traders feel there is a risk, however small, in trading the stock. This entry is only active during the trading day.
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Ask -- The price at which investors are trying to sell their shares. In very heavily traded stocks, there is so much buying and selling interest that the bid and ask prices often match. This entry is only active during the trading day.
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52 Week High -- The highest price shares reached in the past year, working back from the current date.
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52 Week Low -- The lowest price shares reached in the past year, working back from the current date.
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P/E -- The price-to-earnings ratio. This key measuring stick is calculated by dividing the share price by current earnings per share, or, sometimes, projected earnings. This value is often compared against that of other shares to see how well a company is performing.
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Earnings/Share -- Earnings per share, calculated by dividing the most recent quarterly earnings by the total number of shares outstanding. This is a way to measure the company's performance on a per-share basis.
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Dividend/Share -- Dividend per share. Spacely Sprockets doesn't pay any dividends to shareholders so there is no entry for this listing. If there were an entry it would be displayed in dollars and cents. Most commonly, dividends are paid quarterly.
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Current Div. Yield -- The dividend yield per share, calculated by dividing the annualized dividend by the share price. You can take this figure and compare the return on your share investment to bond yields, a common investment benchmark. Since Spacely Sprockets doesn't pay dividends there is no entry here.
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Market Cap -- Market capitalization shows the total value of the company's equity. It is calculated by multiplying the number of shares outstanding by the share price. Spacely Sprockets was worth about $115.7 billion on the day of the quote. Working backwards through the math you can calculate that the company has 2,334,543,987 shares outstanding. The market cap will change as share prices fluctuate or if a company issues or recalls shares.
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# Shares Out -- The number of shares outstanding.
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Ex-Div. -- The date on which you must have owned a share in order to receive a dividend for that quarter. Since Spacely Sprockets doesn't pay dividends there is no entry here.
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Exchange -- Where these shares are traded. NYSE stands for New York Stock Exchange. NASDAQ stands for National Association of Securities Dealers Association Quotation system. AMEX stands for the American Stock Exchange, now merged with the NASDAQ. Shares are also traded on smaller, regional exchanges in Chicago, Philadelphia, Cincinnati (this electronic exchange is really located in Chicago, but it is still called Cincinnati), San Francisco and Boston.
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