How do I understand share price tables?
At first glance the deluge of numbers attached to daily share prices in newspapers or online may be hard to decipher but understanding the jargon can help you make sense of it all.
While newspapers will display figures from the end of the previous day's trading, the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) website updates every 20 minutes during market hours. The table below provides an example of the way share price data is typically presented:
Figures are for illustrative purposes only.
The terms explained
Code: Each company and its respective securities that are listed on a stock exchange, like the ASX, are allocated an identification code. For example, WOW refers to Woolworths' ordinary shares.
Name: The abbreviated company name. Sometimes this section will also include the type of security to be traded, most commonly 'fully paid ordinary', which refers to ordinary shares in a company.
Last: The last price at which the shares were sold on the market. For example, the last sale price for BHP was $37.52, according to the above table.
% Chg: The change in the current value of a share compared to the previous day's closing price, expressed as a percentage.
Bid: The highest price at which people are willing to buy shares in the company at that time.
Offer: The lowest price at which people are willing to sell shares in the company at that time.
The bid and offer prices may also be referred to as buy and sell prices. They represent unsatisfied buyers and sellers still in the market either at that specific time or at the last market close if the market is shut at the time.
In the above table, QBE is quoting bid and offer prices of $14.62 and $14.63. This means shares could be purchased at $14.63 and sold at $14.62 at that specific moment.
The difference in value between the bid and offer price is known as the 'spread'.
Open: This is the price at which the first trade in the security took place on a particular trading day.
High: Represents the highest price for a company traded on a particular day.
Low: Represents the lowest price for a company traded on a particular trading day.
Volume: The number of shares traded on and off market so far on a particular day.