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When you're first learning about the stock market, the stock tables in the paper can be quite confusing. Learning how to read stocks won't take much time, though, and it's very important.

There are twelve columns in the table, and you'll notice that each stock has its own line in this table. Let's examine the first two columns, which are usually named something like "52W High" and 52W Low." These tell you about the stock's performance over the last year. The names are pretty suggestive; "52W High" reveals the highest value the stock has reach in the past 52 weeks. Its lowest value shows up in the "52W Low."

In the follow column you'll see the actual name of the stock. This will be followed by another column that shows the stock's ticker symbol. There's a unique combination of letters for each stock. You will probably recognize some of these from the tickers that run across the bottom of the screen sometimes on the cable news networks.

Speaking of which, watching the financial shows on these networks will give you further help on how to read stocks and other aspects of the stock market.

There's another column next to the ticker column, and it's labeled "Div." This column shows you the annual dividend the stock pays out for each share. Many rows will have this column blank, which means they don't currently pay out dividends. The percentage return on the dividend shows up in the "Yield %" column, though it too will be blank if the stock doesn't pay out dividends.

P/E is the price to earnings ratio. Dividing the current stock price by earnings per share for the last four quarters gives you this number.

The next two columns are "High" and "Low." You'll be able to see the lowest and highest point the stock has reached in the day's trading. "Close" is the point at which the stock closed that day, and "Net Change" shows the change from the day before.

You'll be able to move on and learn even more about the stock market once you have a basic understanding of how to read stocks.

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