Yahoo! Finance Chart Basics

Imagine you have just read a story on Yahoo! Finance describing the record profits oil companies are earning due to rising oil prices, and you would like to see how these record profits are affecting stock prices. You decide to look at the stock of the largest oil company on the market: ExxonMobil. Since ExxonMobil is a member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, you have seen the company’s ticker symbol, XOM, frequently highlighted on Yahoo! Finance. With this information, you are ready get started.

To begin your analysis, enter the ticker symbol for ExxonMobil, click the Get Chart button (or hit the Enter key on your keyboard) and the XOM chart appears instantly. You know it is the ExxonMobil chart because in the upper left corner of the chart, you see “Exxon Mobil Corp.” under the NAME heading followed by the company’s ticker symbol in parenthesis, “(XOM).”

Moving across the top of the chart to the right, you see the LAST TRADE, CHANGE, VOLUME and TIME information for the most recent stock movement.

LAST TRADE tells you at what price the stock last traded on the exchange.

CHANGE tells you how far up or down—in both monetary and percentage-based terms—the stock has moved during the current or most recent trading day. You can also tell if the stock has moved up or down by looking at the color of the numbers. When the numbers are green and there is a green up arrow to the left side of the numbers, you know the stock price is higher now than where it was when it closed the previous day. When the numbers are red and there is a red down arrow to the left side of the numbers, you know the stock price is lower now than where it was when it closed the previous day.

VOLUME tells you how many shares of the stock have traded during the current trading period.

TIME tells you when the last trade was cleared on the stock.

This information gives you a quick glimpse into the price action of the stock for the current day. When you are analyzing potential trades and monitoring those trades you have already entered, this information allows you to track price movement at a glance.

If you want more information regarding the daily trading range, the 52-week trading range and the current news stories involving the stock you are charting, click on the MORE QUOTE INFO link in the upper right corner of the chart. This link will take you to fundamental information page of your stock. Clicking the “back” arrow in your browser will take you back to your Yahoo! Finance Chart.

As you move your cursor back and forth across your Yahoo! Finance Chart, you will see two track balls following your cursor. The first track ball moves back and forth across the historical price data of the stock you are charting. The second track ball moves back and forth across the historical volume data of the stock. These track balls help you pinpoint those time periods for which you want to view historical price and volume data.

Imagine you were looking at this chart of ExxonMobil and you noticed that the price of the stock dropped to a new low on extremely high volume sometime during late October. Wanting to know how low the price dropped and how much volume there actually was that day, you place your cursor over that price dip. Doing so moves the track balls to the day you want to analyze. If you look at the upper right-hand corner of the chart, you can see the exact date ExxonMobil dropped to its lowest point during the past year—October 20, 2005—and the OPEN, HIGH, LOW and CLOSE prices for the stock on that day.

OPEN is the price at which the stock began trading for the day.

HIGH is the highest price the stock reached for the day.

LOW is the lowest price the stock reached for the day.

CLOSE is the price at which the stock ceased trading for the day.

Now that you're finished reading the text version of this tutorial, watch the video.

Next tutorial: Symbol Lookup For Charts

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