The stock market is surrounded with intricate terms and acronyms that can intimidate the newcomer.
However, being able to read a stock table is important for you to analyse a particular stock’s performance. Viewing a stock table can help you determine if you want to invest in that stock or not. If you are unable to properly read a stock table, you may not be able to decide and invest strategically.
As a guide, we’ve picked AirAsia Bhd stock from Bloomberg Markets so we can evaluate the convoluted vocabulary.
Stock tables can vary on different websites such as Yahoo! Finance and MSN Money Central, but most stock tables feature these following keywords:
Name and Ticker Symbol: The name of the company the stock represents will appear within a stock table along with its ticker symbol. Ticker symbols are viewed as abbreviations of the company name to represent the company in some way. So in this case this stock belongs to AirAsia Bhd and the ticker symbol is AIRA: MK
Right next to the ticker symbol, you will see ‘BURSA MALAYS’. This indicates AirAsia Bhd stock is traded on Bursa Malaysia.
The red arrow pointing down indicates that the stock current price has dropped to MYR2.57, as of 27 June 2016. On the right, it tells you that the stock price has dropped by MYR0.04 and 1.53% compared to its closing price on the previous day.
Open: The amount the stock price was at the open of the market which means the stock started off on 27 June 2016 with MYR2.59.
Volume: The amount of shares traded that day which means AirAsia Bhd has traded 20,159,5000 shares. The volume portrays an interest to buy and sell in a company.
52 Week Range: It displays the details of the stock’s lowest price and the highest price it has reached over the past 52 weeks. So the lowest price for this stock is MYR 0.77 and the highest price it has reached was MYR 2.73.
Day’s Range: The price fluctuations of the stock on that particular day. AirAsia Bhd stock’s price has fluctuated between MYR2.55 to RM2.62.
Previous Close: The amount the stock price was at the previous day’s close. This means AirAsia Bhd stock’s closing price on the day before was MYR 2.61.
1 YR Return: An annual return is a percentage value that tells you how much an investment has increased in value on average per year over a period of time. Annual return can help you to evaluate how successful an investment has been. This stock’s annual return is currently 70.03%.
*Text by Chris Tan
