Beyond the news
In the pages of the FT, Times and Telegraph lurk some of the most impenetrable but also most important sources of information.
I'm referring to the share listing pages.
Below is a cut out from the FT and we will aim to make sense of it.
Confused? Don't worry, we'll reveal all.
From the far left is the company name.
Fairly straightforward so far.
On the dealing screens, abbreviations are used referred to as EPIC codes.
When searching on some of the website for research you may be asked to use the EPIC.
Next we have the notes column, which shows whether a free annual, or interim report available.
This is followed by the price field.
It quotes the mid price - the average of the bid and offer price.
The + and - denote how many pence the shares have either risen or fallen over the day.
The 52 week high/low column gives the year high and low of the closing share price.
Volume shows how many shares changed hands, measured in thousands.
Yield refers the dividend expressed as a percentage of the share price.
Company yields are intensely scrutinised by those seeking an income or looking for a value stock.
P/E refers to the price earnings ratio.
As we have already discussed the P/E is a way of measuring whether a company's shares are cheap or expensive.
It is usually expressed as a multiple of earnings per share.
Take a simple example of a company, Bigco, whose share price is £1, or 100p.
Last year it made earnings per share of 5p.
The calcualtion is simple - it is the share price divided by earnings. In the case of BigCo, its P/E is 20.
Or we can say it is valued at 20 times historic earnings.
We may find that that its rival Midco has a P/E of 18, which means the market thinks Bigco has better prospects.
As we said, P/Es vary from sector to sector.