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Stock Transaction Vocabulary

Before you go head-first looking at stock tickers and financial websites, it's important to understand some basic terminology.

  • stock price - the current price a given stock is trading

  • 52 week high - the highest trading price for a stock in the past 52 weeks (which is a year, but understand this is not from January to December, it is the 52 weeks prior to the day you are looking at the price)

  • 52 week low - the lowest trading price for a stock in the past 52 weeks

  • market cap - the total value of all a company's outstanding shares of stock

  • dividend - money shared with stockholders when a corporation makes a profit

  • beta - a measure of how much a stock changes from day to day

Also, keep in mind that the financial data on financial websites is in real-time, which means that prices are being constantly updated. You may never see the exact same data again because every time someone buys or sells an investment, the price changes.

How to Use Financial Websites

Watch the video How to Use Financial Websites (7:37) below.

Open How to Use Financial Websites in a new tab

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