A stock table has several components that provide valuable information that can be used for the purpose of crafting or tailoring your investment strategy.
Firstly, the stock name lists the symbol or abbreviation that a stock is traded by. There can be cases in which the stock name has characters, such as “pf”, to denote the type of stock (pf, in this case, is a preferred stock). When characters are not present, the stock is a common stock.
The dividend per share states how much the company pays in the dividends per share owned. When this column is blank, know that the company does not pay any dividends.
Tied to this number is the dividend yield, which states the percentage return on the dividend. Another feature to consider is the price to earnings ratio, which divides the price of the stock by its earning/share over the last four quarters.
The high, low, and close respectively indicate the highest and lowest price the stock was traded at, as well as the stock’s value when it closed. The net change column specifies the difference between the price of the stock and the previous day’s closing price.
Finally, trading volume denotes the total number of shares traded over a day.