Dealing in shares
Some serious investors choose to add individual shares to their portfolio. So here's how to keep track of them.
Checking the daily price of shares is simple. The easiest way is to look at one of the many financial websites that offer share information and up-to-the-minute prices. Try The Share Centre's website and Bloomberg, for example.
For a share price that is updated during the day, you can also check websites, such as the London Stock Exchange. Some newspapers, such as the Financial Times, contain a financial section that list share prices, and most newspaper websites list share details. Most listings contain a number of columns that give you information about the shares.
If you check popular shares such as Tesco, the giant supermarket chain listed on the FTSE 100, you will find a range of information about it. You may need its 'epic' - or abbreviation - to search for the share price, but you can search for this on financial sites such as The Share Centre - in Tesco's case it is TSCO. You can type this into shares.telegraph.co.uk or London Stock Exchange, for example, for more information on the stock.
Here's what all the abbreviations mean:
Price: This is the mid-market price of one share that is worked out at the close of business on the day before the newspaper is printed.
+ or -: This section shows whether the share price has gone up (+) or down (-) since the day before, and by how much.
52 week high/low: This shows the highest and lowest prices that shares in the company have sold for during the year.
Volumes 000's: This tells you how many of the company's shares were bought and sold on the day before.
P/E: This is the price to earnings ratio. It gives an idea of how much a share is making compared to how much it costs.
Updated: 09/01/2013
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