Reading
Market Reports
As a stock trader, you will begin to pay more interest to the business section of your local
newspaper. Most feature a section that deals with Stock Market prices at close of the previous day.
In this section, you will come across the following descriptions:
| Year’s High |
- the highest price for a particular stock for the year. |
| Year’s Low |
- the lowest price for a particular stock for the year. |
| Stock Code |
- a unique numbering system to identify a particular stock. |
| Stock Counter |
- the stocks listed on Bursa Malaysia. |
| Cls’ng (Closing) |
- the closing price for a particular stock for that particular trading day. |
| +/- |
- the symbol for the increase or decrease in the stock price for that particular day. |
| +/-% |
- the symbol for the percentage increase or decrease in the stock price. |
| Lots Traded
|
- stocks are normally traded in board lots of 100 units; lots traded will tell you the number
of lots traded on a particular day. |
| Day’s High |
- the highest price for a stock in that trading day. |
| Day’s Low |
- the lowest price for a stock in that particular day. |
| Div Yield
|
- a dividend yield is a method of valuing stocks; it is calculated as
Cash Dividend per Stock = Dividend Yield
Market Stock Price
|
P/E Ratio(Price/Earnings Ratio)
|
- the information obtained from this will enable you to make a performance comparison of a
company with that of the industry, and from one period to another. The formula is:
Current Market Price = P/E Ratio
Earnings Per Stock
|
| Earning per stock |
- amount of a company’s earnings attributable to each ordinary stock of that company. |
| M Cap(Market Capitalisation)
|
- this shows the total value of a listed company’s stocks based on the current market price;
calculated as:
Stock’s Market Price x Number of Stocks Issued
|
| NTA per Stock
|
- this indicates the value of assets backing the stock of a company; calculated by:
Net assets of a company
Number of ordinary stocks in it
|
Reading the stock market performance section of the newspaper is an easy thing to do. You just
need to do it a few times until you begin to feel comfortable with it.
|
