Many people get their quotes from the newspaper or a financial website, but most people don't really know how to read a full quote. They just check to see how well their companies finished. But more experienced investors understand that a day-end quote is not necessarily an accurate tale of the company. So today, I'm going to review a basic detailed quote normally obtained through brokerages and many financial websites, and understanding what each part means.
The picture below is a standard detailed quote you might normally obtain through a brokerage, in this case TD Waterhouse. Each bit of information on the detailed quote has a very important function and I will break that down (The original image has been edited to fit this page).
Line One: Buy, Sell, BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA (THE), 3:04:38 PM EDT
Buy, Sell Two quick links that provide ease to an order entry screen allowing you to buy or sell the stock.
BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA (THE) Simply the name of the public company.
3:04:38 PM EDT Not the current time in Eastern Time, but the time of the last trade. This may be important for low volume assets that may not trade every few seconds as you will see later on.
Line Two: Symbol, T, Bid, Ask, Last, Change, Volume, FSI
This line is just a heading line and needs no explanation. See line three for a detailed explanation of each column.
Line Three: BNS CA T, +, 59.02, 59.03, 59.03, -0.45 (-0.76%), 862,497
BNS CA T Indicates the symbol of the company, which is BNS. The CA stands for Canadian market and the T stands for the specific exchange, in this case, TSX.
+ The "+" symbol is the tick. The tick informs the trader if the last trade was above or below the last trade. A "+" means the 59.03 was above the last price. A "-" would indicate the last trade was below the previous trade. If the trade is at the same price, the tick does not change.
Bid The highest buyer's price. Selling at market would sell at this price.
Ask The lowest seller's price. Buying at market would buy at this price.
Last The last traded price. This price is less important for stocks with low volume as it is possible for the bid and the ask to be priced well above or below. Many stocks only trade a handful of times a day, and the last price could have been hours ago, not truly representing the market price if the demand of the stock has changed.
Change There are usually two numbers: The nominal change in dollars, in this case, down 45 cents as shown by the negative and the red font. And the change in per cent. These are always a change from the previous day's close.
Volume The total amount of shares traded between buyers and sellers including cross-trades. It excludes option assignments or other derivatives.
FSI Financial Status Indicator, generally is blank, but will indicate if the stock is halted, bankrupt, etc.
Line Four: Bid Size 3, Ask Size 18, Earn. Per Share 4.07
This is the start of the detailed quote, often ignored by passive investors.
Bid Size 3 This represents the number of board lots at the bid price. One board lot will vary depending on the price of the stock, but in this case, it is 100 shares. Therefore, there 300 to 399 shares wanting to buy at 59.02.
Ask Size 18 This represents the amount of shares wanting to sell at 59.03, in this case, 1,800 to 1,899.
Earn. Per Share Earnings Per Share (EPS), a very important figure used to determine how profitable the company is. The earnings per share is the net income divided by the total amount of outstanding shares in the market. A higher EPS does not always mean it is a better company, it just represents its profitability per share.
Line Five: Day High 59.57, Day Low 59.00, Price/Earnings 14.5037
Day High 59.57 Simply, this is the highest traded price. Again, it does not show the highest bid of the day, only the highest traded price.
Day Low 59.00 Similar to the day high, it is the lowest price of the day, but not the lowest bid/ask.
Price/Earnings Also known as the P/E ratio, it is the stock price (59.03) divided by the EPS (4.07). This is used to determine if a company is over priced or not. 14.5 is considered an average earnings for bank stocks, but every industry will have its own valuations. It can also be thought as the years to break even. It would take an investor 14.5 years to break even if all the profits were paid to the shareholders directly.
Line Six: Open 59.42, Yield 3.5236, Dividend 2.08
Open 59.42 Simply the value of the first trade of the day after exchanges find a best fit price. Has very little importance to many, but in this case, shows the stock has been dropping throughout the day.
Yield 3.5236 The dividend yield, in per cent, indicates the annual return on the dividend. In this case, by purchasing the stock at 59.03, and collecting your dividends, you would earn 3.52% for the entire year. The yield is solved by dividing the dividend into the stock price. (2.08/59.03)
Dividend 2.08 This is the annual dividend value. Most stocks pay quarterly, so this number will be divided by four to find out the next quarter's payout. In this case, it would be 52 cents a share.
Line Seven: 52 Week High 61.28, 52 Week Low 47.71, Ex-Dividend 01-Apr-2011
52 Week High 61.28 This informs the investor the highest price in the last 52 weeks. This number may change if the 61.28 was traded in April of 2010.
52 Week Low 47.71 This informs the investor the lowest price in the last 52 weeks. Both figures are used by investors to determine the current strength of the stock compared to the last 52 weeks.
Ex-Dividend 01-Apr-2011 This informs the investor the next dividend date. The ex-dividend tells an investor when they must own the stock to qualify for the dividend. In this case, it is April 1. Many sites may use the record date, which would require you to understand the settlement of a stock. It takes three days to settle a stock. Most sites often put the ex-dividend date to remind investors to buy BEFORE this day. You may sell on the ex-dividend date and still receive the dividend, however, in many cases, the stock will have dropped an amount equal to the dividend.
So that's how you read a detailed quote. There is a lot of information, but each piece of information is very valuable, both fundamentally and technically. Before you end it here though, some brokerages provide the book order, also known as market depth and level II quotes. The picture below from iTrade is of the same quote at almost the same time.
As you can see, all the information from the TD Waterhouse quote is also available through iTrade, but in a different format. iTrade seems to also include for free the first five levels of the book order. This can be important when trying to penny pinch an order. The book order shows us the total amount of orders at each price for the highest five bids and lowest five asks. The 15,200 shares at 59.00 suggests there are many buyers wanting to buy at 59.00, hinting at support. However, day trader's will eye this level and see how the stock reacts. If the stock hits 59.00 and pushes upwards, it may mean the stock is heading higher, and that there are not enough sellers. But if the stock falls below 59.00, it means there are enough sellers, or not enough demand, to keep it above 59.00, hinting that the stock may start to fall in the short term.
You may have also noticed the PE for both quotes is a little different. This could be because of reporting errors or different methods of reporting on their system. In a nutshell, the P/E should be used as a guideline as its exact number is not really important.
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