by John F Mann

Created on: December 12, 2010   Last Updated: June 14, 2011

Key information about stocks is found in the basic stock table, especially for those learning about the stock market.

For this discussion, you can follow along by opening another window to view online stock tables provided by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) online. Due to the large volume of data in the table, it may take a minute or so for the information to be fully available.

Stock tables published in newspapers, discussed below, are similar to the WSJ online version. However, the online version has some important differences. Also, you will not have the ability to easily find additional information about each stock, as can easily be done with the online table.

Wall Street Journal Online Stock Tables

Compared to stock tables in newspapers, the WSJ online version is much easier to read. Text  and numbers are more clearly organized.

Letter-symbols used in the table are explained at the end of the table.

Stocks are listed alphabetically. Across the header for each letter is a description of information in the 14 columns, starting with the stock "Symbol" or abbreviation. By clicking on a stock symbol, you can obtain more detailed information about the stock.

Columns 2 - 5 track daily price movement for the previous trading day, beginning with the first trade of the day ("Open") followed by the "High" price, "Low" price and final ("Close") price.

"Net Chg" is the change in price compared to the closing price of the previous day while "%Chg" is the percentage change (from the previous day).

"Vol" is the stock volume, which means how many shares were traded for the day. The actual volume is listed, which is different from newspaper versions, which typically list only a truncated number. Volume can vary greatly. For example, on 6-13-11, volume for General Electric was more than 42 million shares while volume for some stocks was less than 1,000 shares.

Next two columns are the high and low price during the past 52 weeks. These prices may stay the same for weeks or months at a time, although they will evenutally change as time passes.

Next column is the dividend amount, in dollars, for the entire year. This is a major (and welcome) difference compared to newspaper tables, which generally list dividends amounts for each quarter (3 months).

Next column is the annual dividend yield, in percentage terms, which is simply 100 times the annual dividend amount divided by the current stock price. For example, the annual

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