Reading a Stock Table
Overview of the Financial Pages
Many newspapers use to publish financial pages that provided readers with a great deai of
information about the world of stocks, mutual funds, and bonds. Most local newspapers like the
Milwaukee Jortrnal-Sentinel and national newspapers like USA Today still publish stock
summaries and stock tables for the top performing stocks on the major exchanges. For
comprehensive coverage of financial news The Wall Street Journal is still the authority on the
markets, corporate news and in-depth articles. It often uses charts or graphs to show movement
in the prices of stocks, bonds, the dollar and other currencies and commodities. It also reports
the prices of stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and other stock exchanges.
The Limitations of Newspaper Financial Pages
Many newspapers around the United States, with the exception of the Wall Street Journal, have
limited their coverage or stopped printing full stock tables all together. The Internet has
changed the way people tind and gather information about stocks and other investment vehicles
they are interested in. Newspapers have become an antiquated medium in many aspectS but
none more so than when it comes to financial news. Most newspapers do not have the space
required to list all the companies now listed on the major exchanges. The information that is
listed is usually incomplete, and by the time an interested investor reads the information in a
newspaper, stock quotes and other vital statistics is old news.
New and Improved
Newspapers, however, can still be a good starting point in finding information about companies
that investors may be interested in. For up to the minute information on specific companies
though a variety of online resources exist. Discount brokers such as Scottrade, ExTrade, and
Fidelity,just to name a few, offer many research tools that investors comb through to gather
information. Free online resources such as YahooFinance.com provide investors with much of
the same information they used to be able to find in the newspapers. The difference is that it is
constantly being updated with real-time data to allow investors to make better, more informed
decisions.
What Investor Need To Know
Whether an investor is using a newspaper or Yahoo! Finance it is important to know what the
data means. Knowing what the information means is only the first step though, placing weight
or value on various statistical categories at the right time can be the difference in picking a
rising stock over a falling one.
On the following pages you will look at examples of a newspaper stock table snd an online
stock table so that you may become familiar with the statistical information and how to use
whe n researching stocks.
it
Bertrandt
Examples from a Stock Table
Column 1:
Column 2:
This column reports the highest and lowest price of the stock in the most recent 52 week period.
This column provides the name of the company and its stock symbol on the New York Stock Exchange, Harley
Davidson, the motorcycle rnanutacturer, has the symbol HOG. Brady Corporation., identifications solutions, has the symbol BRC.
Kohl's Depaftrnent Stores, the retail department store chain, has the symbol of KSS.
Column 3: DIV stands for dividend, an annual payment per share to owners of the stock. Stock dividends are usually paid
quartcrly or every three months.
Column 4: llhe yield (YLD)
is the dividend calculated as a percentage of the closing price. For example Brady has a .72 dividend
divided by the $29.46 closing price equals .025,or a yield of 2.5 percent.
Column 5: P/E stands for ratio of price to earnings. The P/E ratio is obtained by dividing the stock's price by the company's latest
twelve month earnings per share.
Column 6: VOL is shown in 100s of shares traded on the previous day. For Hariey Davidson the number of shares traded on
September 28,2070, was 1,410,100.
Columns 7 &
8:
Column 7 shows the price at which the stock closed at the end of the previous trading day, September 28,2010.
Kohl's closing stock price was $52.98. Column 8 shows the net change from the previous trading day's close. Kohl's had a positive
net change or gain of $0.83.
Stock Table Data is
Columnl
Column 2
52 Week
Stock (SYM)
HI
Col.
Column
3
4
DIV
YLD
LO
ber 28 2010
Column
Column 6
P/E
Volume
24.22
36.13
20.76
Brady
Corp
BRC
Harley Davidson
7
Column 8
Close
Net
Change
100s
Vo
35.77
Column
.72
2.50
18.97
188,600
29.46
0.30
.40
1.40
N/A
1,410,100
28.63
0.41
N/A
N/A
15.05
3,192,000
52.98
0.83
HOG
60.89
44.07
Kohl's
Corp
KSS
Behind the Numbers: Understandins More about Stock Tables
52 Week High and Lo)o - Study the difference represented by these two numbers. If there is a large difference, you will want to
gather more information to explain why the difference is large. Is the company's stock trading near its high? Is there any reason to
think the price may go higher? ls the company's stock trading near its low? If so, why has the share price declined?
- Commit the stock symbol and name to memory. This will help you find the stock quickly in the
financial pages and when you are online.
Stock Symbol and Name
Dividend -
the annual dividend is quoted as
if you owned one share of the stock. A company that is doing well usually tries
to pay
shareholders a regular dividend. Some people use dividends as a source of regular income. Also, healthy companies try to increase
their dividends from year to year.
Yield - the yield is the return on your invested money that comes from the dividends. Yield changes daily as a stock's price
changes. If you are interested in income from a stock investment, yield becomes important. If a company does not report a dividend
(and some do not), the yield cannot be calculated.
PricelEarnings Ratio -
this ratio is often referred to as the P/E ratio. The P/E ratio is calculated by dividing a stock's last price
by its annual earnings per share. The higher the P/E ratio, the more profit growth stock holders expect from the company. The lower
the P/E ratio, the more closely the price of the stock is expected to reflect the current earnings of the stock. If no P/E ratio is reported
for a stock, the company had a loss during the last four quarters. Since rates of growth in profit vary by industry, P/E ratios for a given
company should be compared to those of other companies in the same industry.
Volume
-
For a given stock, you need to watch the volume traded over time. Soon you
will learn what the normal trading volume
of the stock is. If that trading volume increases or decreases significantly, find out why.
-
These two numbers tell you the closing price of the stock on the trading day reported and the change in
dollars and cents compared to the previous trading day. If you fo1low these two figures over time, you can track what is called the
stock-price trend.
Close and Net Change
Bertrandt
Questions for Discussion
Directions: Use the information from the stock table and information on the previous page to
write answers to the following questions.
1. What is the 52-week high stock price for Kohl's?
2. What is the 52-week low price for Brady?
3. What is the annual dividend for Harley Davidson?
4. What is the percentage yield for Brady
5. What
Corp?
is the prtcelearnings ratio for Kohl's?
6. On September 28,2010, how many shares of Harley Davidson
stock were traded?
7. What is the closing price of Brady Corp stock on September 28,2010?
8. Did the closing price of Harley Davidson stock represent a gain or a loss? How
9. What is revealed
much?
about a company by the 52week high and low?
10.Why might dividends be important to some people?
11.What do investors expect to happen when the P/E ratio of a company is high for its
industry?
Bertrandt
Reading an Online Stock Table
The following data is from September 29,20l0and is a snapshot of what an online summary quotation looks
like using Yahoo! Finance. l-ook at the similarities in categorical information from the newspaper stock table
and the online resource. Many investors prefer online stock research because more information is available and
New User? Fegisls Sign ln j Hetp
it is timelier.
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What are some of the similar statistical categories we see in the online summary
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What visual indicator allows an investor to quickly see how a stock is doing?
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What other information is listed on the summary page that could be helpful to investors? Why?
Bertrandt