Stock Market?

Question

Hello, Im 19 years old and wanted to learn a little more about the stock market and how it works.
In the stock market right now and i see all these things that dont really understand, hoping that someone could tell me what all this means?

$ Last Trade - 27.87
Volume - 45,216,569
$ Change - 0.12
% Change - 0.43

Knowing all this can someone tell me what all this means and tell me if i did own this stock how much money i would have made?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

There's a lot to know, but you've hit on a few of the basic.

"$ Last Trade" is the price at which the last trade was made. A trade being someone selling stock to someone else. It's basically the "going price" of a share of stock.

Volume is the number of shares that traded hands during the day.

Change (%, and $) is the change between yesterday's closing price and the current price ($ Last Trade). I'm not sure if your "-" is a dash or a negative sign. Below, I've assumed it's a negative sign. If it's a dash, then change my "loss" to "gain."

In this case, the current price is $27.87. When the market closed last night, the price was $27.87 + $0.12 or $27.99.

If you bought at the closing price ($27.99) and then sold right now ($27.87), you'd have lost 12 cents per share. If you had 100 shares, you'd have lost $12 plus commissions paid to your broker.

Keep in mind that "last trade" is not necessarily the price you'll get for buying or selling. Price fluctuates (more so on certain stocks than others). Plus, the information is usually at least 20 minutes old.

Answer 2

Hey Man, interesting question! First you need to know that there are way more tricky symbols and abvr. to understand with stocks. Your local newspaper will have a list of the symbols and show you what they mean, that would be a good start for you. However the information in your question shows that it sold last for $27.87 and that throughout the day over 45million sells or buys were reported for that stock. Finally to figure out how much money you would have made you would have to use a financial equation from a book. The %change is exactly what it sounds like; how much the stock changed over the course of the day presented as a percentage. Hope thats cool man, good luck.

Answer 3

This is the most basic of all stock info. In order, what you're looking at is the stock's current trading price, the amount of shares traded today, the difference in price from yesterday's close, and that difference expressed as a percentage. It's one of the most basic pieces of info you need to know before making any decisions.

Answer 4

If you bought 1000 shares, for $27,870 you would have made $120 for a .43% gain.

If you bought 100 shares for $2,787 you would have made $12 for a .43% gain.

Stocks represent ownership in a company. Last trade is the current price someone paid for the stock. I highly recommend reading some books on basic investing before jumping in.

Answer 5

Last trade is the market value of a stock at the end of the day.
Volume is the number of shares of stock sold.
$ change means the stock went from $27.75 at the beginning of the trading day and went up twelve cents in value that day. % change is .12 divided by 27.75 or .00432 divided by 100% equals .43 per cent increase in value on the day.

Answer 6

$ last trade- is just that, how much a share of a particular stock sold for in the last trade.
Volume - total shares being traded
$ change - the $ value the stock has changed in a given period of time
% change - the percent a stock has changed in a given period of time.

Hope this helps!