How to Differentiate Between Preferred Stock or Common Stock in a Corporation

Most stock that people own is common stock. There is another sort of stock called preferred stock. It is like a cross between stock and a fixed-income security and is owned for dividends rather than capital gains. Preferred stock can be bought and sold like common stock. Here's how to differentiate between preferred stock or common stock in a corporation.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Go to a Financial Website

1. Locate in the Internet either Yahoo! finance or Google finance, or another financial website.

2. Get a stock quote for your ticker symbol. Preferred stock often has ".PR" or ".PF" after the ticker.

3. The website should be able to give you a quote for your stock. If it's common stock it will just be the name of the company. If it's preferred it will be the name of the company and something like "preferred." Often abbreviations are used.

Go to the Company's Website

4. Go online to the website of the company whose stock you own.

5. Visit the "investor relations" area of the website.

6. Find the place in investor relations where they list their securities. It will be called something like "securities outstanding" or "stock information." You might have to surf around a bit.

7. Examine the list of outstanding securities. It will be broken down into common stock, preferred stock and probably notes and bonds. It will give you the ticker symbol for the common stock and any preferred stock it has issued. The common stock will always have a ticker symbol. The preferred stock might just have a 9-digit alphanumeric code.