Exchange Stock Quotes

Day-to-day stock quotes generally contain the latest price of the stock (or its closing price on the previous trading day), as well as net and percentage price changes, highs and lows for the stock, plus its trading volume which indicates how much market activity that stock has enjoyed during the day's trading hours.

This information, available from free stock quote sources, often gives you the best picture of how well a stock is doing. If you're an investor, or are interested in becoming one, checking stock market quotes from time to time is an excellent idea.

Some people are confused when they see that a stock market quote consists of more than just one number. If you have ever looked at the stock exchange information in a newspaper, you have likely seen columns of numbers and symbols. Each of these columns represents a different standard of measurement.

One you will notice is the 52-week HI and LO, which reveals the highest price the stock achieved as well as the lowest price it experienced in the past year. This does not include the stock prices of the day before.

Another measurement is DIV, an acronym for Dividend/Distribution Rates. It refers to the dividend available for the stock and gives you an indication of what you might expect in profits if that were a stock you had purchased.

PE stands for Price to Earnings Ratio, which is calculated by dividing the per-share earnings by the stock's closing price. CLOSE is the closing price or the last price quoted on a stock during the day.

The volume of sales of a stock, the VOL/100s, are unofficial results. Add two zeros to the number in this column in order to see actual selling rates - unless there is an "f "after the number, in which case you must add four zeros. This would be a stock the novice should avoid as the market is definitely uninterested in it. On the other hand, anytime a number in this column is underlined, it means the stock selling volume was unusually high.

While most papers show several other columns under stock exchange quotes, those, with one exception, are the main ones to concentrate on. The last one you should take note of is NET CHANGE, which refers to the change between stock prices today and those at closing yesterday.