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The stock tables in major business publications such as the Wall Street Journal and Investor’s Business Daily are loaded with information that can help you become a savvy investor — if you know how to interpret them. You need the information in the stock tables for more than selecting promising investment opportunities. You also need to consult the tables after you invest to monitor how your stocks are doing.

Looking at the stock tables without knowing what you’re looking for or why you’re looking is the equivalent of reading War and Peace backwards through a kaleidoscope — nothing makes sense. But this section can help you make sense of it all (well, at least the stock tables!). Table 1-1 shows a sample stock table. Each item gives you some clues about the current state of affairs for that particular company. The sections that follow describe each column to help you understand what you’re looking at.

TABLE 1-1 A Sample Stock Table

52-Wk High	52-Wk Low	Name (Symbol)	Div	Vol	Yld	P/E	Day Last	Net Chg
21.50	8.00	SkyHighCorp (SHC)		3,143		76	21.25	+.25
47.00	31.75	LowDownInc (LDI)	2.35	2,735	5.9	18	41.00	–.50
25.00	21.00	ValueNowInc (VNI)	1.00	1,894	4.5	12	22.00	+.10
83.00	33.00	DoinBadlyCorp (DBC)		7,601			33.50	–.75

Every newspaper’s financial tables are a little different, but they give you basically the same information. Updated daily, these tables aren’t the place to start your search for a good stock; they’re usually where your search ends. The stock tables are the place to look when you own a stock or know what you want to buy, and you’re just checking to see the most recent price.