How to Read the Wall Street Journal Stock Report

If you ever wanted to check a stock out, and bought a Wall Street Journal, then you can understand that the stock report is a little difficult to decipher. Just read the article below to understand how to read the Wall Street Journal Stock Report. Read on to learn more.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• A copy of the Wall Street journal stock report or its stock report online

1. Check the indexes. The beginning of the market report tells the movement of the major indexes such as the Dow Jones Industrials or NASDAQ.
2. Understand why the indexes are important. When checking out your stock you should know what size the company is, and what market it is sold in. The DOW is primarily larger companies compared to the Russell that is smaller companies. You can tell whether your stock is going up and down with market movement or whether it is moving due to a change specific to the company by knowing what index to follow.
3. Find the symbol for the stock. Beside it will be the opening price for the day. There is also a listing for the high of the day, sometimes the high was held for only one purchase and can be deceptive; the low, and finally the close of the day price.
4. Check for the change in cost for the day, followed by the per cent change. If your stock was $1a share when the market opened and it was $1.06 when the market closed; then it went up 6 cents. The percentage growth would be 6 oer cent.
5. Find the volume of trading. This number tells how active the stock is. The larger the number, the more actively traded. If a stock is seldom traded, and you own it and want to sell, it may be harder to sell it for the market price. Next to the volume is 52 week high and low. This is the highest reported price for the stock and the lowest in a 52 week period.
6. Realize that the next two columns are important in understanding what return you're actually getting. The first shows any dividends that are received from the stock and the second shows the per cent of return that it is. The dividend is a distribution of profit from the company and should be considered in the return besides using the capital gain or loss.
7. Understand that the PE is a ratio of the price of the stock to its earnings. The final column shows what per cent the stock has gained over the last year.

Tips & Warnings

• Sometimes a stock's high was held for only one purchase and so it can be deceptive.