How to Read a Stock Market Sheet
The stock market is a reliable source of investment opportunities for people saving for retirement or their children's education but it can be a challenge to understand the financial data. A lot of people simply don't know how to read a stock market sheet in the newspaper, which makes it difficult to track their investments. Fortunately, if you understand a few key steps you will understand how to keep track of your investments with a stock market sheet with ease.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
-
1
Get the business section of any local paper that has stock market quotes for the previous trading day. You can also use any financial periodical, such as Barron's, the Financial Times or the Wall Street Journal. Turn to the stock market quote section and select a stock that you want to track.
-
2
Read from left to right the following information to gather a full understanding of the stock's price action and outlook:
Price: The current price of a stock.
Previous close: The price at the end of the previous trading day.
52-Week High, Low: Highest and lowest price that the stock traded at in the preceding 52-week period.
Dividend: The dividend per share expressed in the dollar amount.
Yield: The dividend expressed as a percentage of the current stock price.
PE: Price-to-earning ratio, derived from dividing the company's stock price per share by earnings per share. This is also an indicator of whether a stock is overvalued or not.
Volume: Number of shares bought and sold during the day on a given stock.
Day's Range: The stock's high and low that it traded at on a given day.
Market capitalization: The total market value of a company, calculated by multiplying the current price per share by the number of shares. -
-
3
Scan and take note of the "Net Change" on the stock's price action which compares a gain or loss from the previous trading day. This helps you determine whether the present trading day had a bullish or bearish trading day. Keeping track of these types of days helps you determine whether the stock is being bought up by investors and experiencing a bullish run or being sold off and possibly causing a bearish downturn in the stock.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
You can get a copy of Investor's Business Daily and look up a Earnings Per Share, or EPS, in their stock market table, which will give you an idea of the financial strength of the stock. High EPS ratings can indicate companies that have strong balance sheets making them good investments to research.
Make sure you look at a stock's price chart as well. A price chart reveals the stock's price action over a given period of time. Just looking at the data on a stock market sheet gives only a small glimpse of whether the stock is a good investment or not. A stock's price action that is trending upward with strength on its price chart is a good candidate to consider while a stock trending downward would not be.
