The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is the largest stock exchange market in the world by market capitalization. Other stock exchanges include NASDAQ. A stock exchange is where stocks and their equivalents are sold and bought. One finds stockbrokers, buyers, sellers, investors, and traders here.

What is a stock market quote?

A stock market quote is the umbrella term for all relevant information about a particular stock listed on an exchange. Such information is:

• Name of the stock
• The ticker symbol of the stock
• Current share price
• Number of shares
• Trading volume
• Yield
• Ask price
• Bid and ask
• Recent trading activity
• Stock's parent company history

Put more clearly; a stock market quote is the actual, real-time monetary value of a particular item in the market. In the stock market, a millisecond could translate to thousands of dollars in difference. Therefore, a stock market quote should be real-time and constantly updated.

Reading through stock market quotes may be daunting for traders and stockbrokers. One needs to familiarize themselves thoroughly with ticker symbols and other abbreviations used in the stock market.

In the US, stocks are quoted in decimals, not fractions, as done decades ago. Decimals began to be used on April 9, 2001. This meant that investors could make more and save more in transactional costs.

What a stock market quote is made of

A stock market quote tells us more about a particular stock than its price. It should be as detailed as possible yet presented concisely. Some of the most important components of a stock market quote include:

Company name

Every stock comes from a parent company; they pay dividends to shareholders periodically. The company is a publicly traded business. Be careful about companies like Google, whose parent company name is Alphabet.

Stock symbol

This is perhaps the most definitive feature of a stock, also called its ticker symbol. You will see AAPL as Apple's ticker symbol or KO for The Coca-Cola Company. Ticker symbols were introduced as an industry standard by Standard & Poor (S&P).

Ticker symbols differ depending on the particular stock market. For instance, the New York Stock Exchange requires tickers not to exceed three letters. The NASDAQ allows for ticker symbols that are four letters long. Some companies have single-letter NYSE ticker symbols, such as F for Ford and V for Visa.

While ticker symbols are unique identifiers, publicly traded companies can only select from a predefined list. To avoid confusion and irrelevance, the tickers are chosen to sound almost the same as the company name.

Current Price

This refers to the stock's price as of the most recent time. The best way to know a stock's current price is by constantly refreshing the webpage; prices fluctuate in seconds. When the markets close for the day, the price will remain constant until they are opened the next day.

Open/ Close

Open is the first real-time price the stock trades at when the exchange is opened.

Close, also called 'Prev Close' or 'Last,' is the price at which the stock traded when the markets closed, that is, yesterday. The prices at closing and opening on the next day don't remain constant because of after-hours trading activities.

High/ Low

A stock market quote will include the day's highest and lowest stock prices. The quote will include this figure even if the highest price only lasted a second. It paints a picture of the stock's volatility when considering the difference between the highest and the lowest low.

Net change

It is important to have a clear overview of how a certain stock changes in value. Net change is calculated in two ways:

• Getting the difference between the previous closing price and the current day's stock price. This is called the absolute net change.
• The percentage net change is calculated by dividing the absolute net change by the previous closing price and multiplying the figure by 100.

A positive net change means that today's stock is performing better than yesterday. Green means positive net change, while red means negative.

Volume

How many stocks have been sold and/or bought within a day comprises the stock's daily volume? Volumes are an indicator of growth since they mostly follow trends. While they will not be a sufficient metric to measure growth on their own, they can be used to reveal the veracity behind a recent trend that affects the stock, such as breaking news.

Market cap (market capitalization)

This refers to the total value of a company's shares. If a company has 40 million shares, with each selling at $100, the company has a market capitalization of $4 billion. Large-cap companies with market caps of above $10 billion are well-known and are more established in business than the rest.

Apple has the largest market cap of $2.64 trillion.

52-week high low

This definitively tells you the highest and lowest price investors were willing to pay for a particular stock within one year, which is made up of 52 weeks. It gives investors a broader view of how well or poorly the stock has performed in several instances in the year.

Number of shares

When stated on a company's portfolio, this is the total number of shares currently held by shareholders. It is the numerical figure of 'every stock called by the company's name.'

Bid/ Ask

The bid price is what buyers are willing to pay for a company's stock, while the ask is what sellers offer for the same stock. For instance, for AAPL, the 'bid' is 150.92 * 1200, while the 'ask' is 0.00 * 1200.

Dividend yield

The dividend yield is a metric that aims to reveal to shareholders how much value they get from their investment. It is calculated as the price of each share's dividend divided by the price of that share. A high dividend yield could mean higher dividends or a declining share price. Dividend yield should not be assessed in a solitary manner but with the collaboration of other metrics. A good dividend yield is between 2% and 4%.

The bottom line

Stock quotes reveal so much essential information about a stock. In the stock market, the more information available, the better. It just spells credibility and experience. When using stock quotes to compare multiple stock options, it is prudent to compare from similar standpoints, such as dividend yield to dividend yield.

Consult a professional stockbroker or financial advisor for more advice on understanding and interpreting stock market quotes.