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. To find out how the stock has been performing over the past year, look at the first two columns-- these will be labeled something to the effect of "52W High" and "52W Low." 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."

The next column is the name of the stock itself, followed by another column showing the stock's ticker symbol. There's a unique combination of letters for each stock. You will probably recognize some of these from the tickers that run across the bottom of the screen sometimes on the cable news networks.

Speaking of TV, you might want to watch the financial shows. They can give you a lot of help and information that will show you how to read stocks and understand the stock market even better.

"Div" is the column that comes after the ticker column. This indicates the stock's annual dividend paid out per share. If you see a blank space in this column, that means the stock doesn't pay dividends right now. The same goes for the next column - "Yield %" - the percentage return on the dividend.

P/E is the price to earnings ratio. You get this number by dividing the current stock price by the earnings per share for the last four quarters.

The next two columns are "High" and "Low." You'll be able to see the lowest and highest point the stock has reached in the day's trading. "Net Change" shows the change from the day before; "Close" tells you the point when the stock closed for the day.

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.

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