When you’re first learning about the stock market, the stock tables in the paper can be quite confusing. Learning how to read stocks won’t take much time, though, and it’s very important.

Let’s look closer at the table. You’ll notice that there are twelve columns in the table; each stock has a line of its own. Let’s examine the first two columns, which are usually named something like “52W High” and 52W Low.” These tell you about the stock’s performance over the last year. The names are pretty suggestive; “52W High” reveals the highest value the stock has reach in the past 52 weeks. Its lowest value shows up in the “52W Low.”

In the following column you’ll see the actual name of the stock. This will be followed by another column that shows the stock’s ticker symbol. There’s a unique combination of letters for each stock. In fact, you might be able to recognize some of them. Maybe you’ve seen the tickers running across the bottom of the screen when you watch the news.

By the way, watching some of the financial shows could be a good idea. It will further your knowledge even more on how to read stocks and understand the way the market works.

“Div” is the column that comes after the ticker column. From this column, you see how much in annual dividends the stock pays out for every share. You’ll know the stock doesn’t pay out dividends if this particular column is blank. The percentage return on the dividend shows up in the “Yield %” column, though it too will be blank if the stock doesn’t pay out dividends.

P/E is the price to earnings ratio. Dividing the current stock price by earnings per share for the last four quarters gives you this number.

The next two columns are “High” and “Low.” In the day’s trading, you’ll be able to see the highest and lowest points that the stock has reached. “Close” is the point at which the stock closed that day, and “Net Change” shows the change from the day before.

Once you’re armed with a good working knowledge of how to read stocks, you can begin to delve into other aspects of the market.