Understanding the stock market?

Factual Questions
1

i am not completely in the dark about the stock market, but i would like to know more.

Can anyone explain the numbers of the stock market, for example on CNBC what are the number going across the bottom of the screen and what are the numbers on the right of the screen?

or provide a web-site that would help me better understand the stock market.

thank you.

2

I’d have to look, but they’re generally showing the stock ticker. All stock transactions are displayed as they happen.

The letters indicate the company traded and the number, the price. There’s often also a second number, giving the number of shares. If no number of shares is given, it’s 100. Thus the entry:

GE 34.75

Means 100 shares of GE were sold at a price of $34.75.

3

Some other thoughts

I don’t have cable anymore but usually the numbers on the right, IIRC, are the totals for the market. For example, if you see some thing like NASDAQ 2358 (note I am making up the number) in green it means that the total of all stocks listed NASDAQ is up. IIRC, they will also list a number which is how many points the market is up for the day. If the exchange is down the numbers are in red. To make things clearer I think they include a little arrow pointing up or down depending on that days market.

A diagram:
NASDAQ 2358 ^ 44
Means that the NASDAQ total is at 2358 and is up 44 points.

I also seem to remember that they might have a listing for the volume but I haven’t watched in a while.

If you are interested in learning I would suggest you go to a Charles Schwab office state that you are interested in investing and want to learn more. They should give you a packet of information on investing. I picked one up and the material was very helpful and easy to understand. I got one and it explained the basics very well and hit on some more complex issues, like puts and calls.

Note, I use Schwab and like them alot but I imagine any investment firm will hand out free info if you ask.

Slee

4

thank you both RealityChuck and sleestak i will try and get some info on the stock market from Schwab.

thank you

PHA

5

www.investopedia.com/university/stocks/