Interpreting the Signs

Whether you pick and choose your own investments or leave that to us, it pays to understand what is happening in the market place. Information about the price of your shares is readily available, both in the financial pages of the daily newspapers and on numerous websites on the Internet, including the Goodbody site.

Understanding this information is not as difficult as you may think. To illustrate, the following information typifies what is generally provided within most business pages:

• The first column shows the Name of the company.
• The Price will be shown in euros, pence, $ etc. and denotes how much your share is worth.
• The +/- column tells you how much the share price has increased or decreased since the closing price on the previous (trading) day.
• The High and Low columns normally show the highest and lowest price the stock has reached in the current year (or can be during last 12 months)
• Mkt Cap stands for 'market capitalisation', which means the total number of shares the company has issued, multiplied by the price of those shares. In other words, this is the total value the stock market places on the company.
• Yld Gross % represents the income (dividend) a company pays before tax, as a percentage of the quoted share price. In this example, if you invested £100, your dividend would be £2.50 and the gross yield is 2.5%.
• P/E stands for 'price earnings ratio' and is the value of a company's stock price relative to company earnings. The P/E ratio is determined by dividing the price of the stock by company earnings per share. Generally speaking the higher the P/E ratio, the more highly valued the company.

If you are confused by some of the stock market terminology you hear you might be able to find an explanation of the term in our glossary.