How to Read a Streaming Stock Quote (5 Steps)

Find the stock symbols of the company or companies you want to follow through any of the following websites: MSN money central, investors.com, finance.yahoo.com or market watch. Look for the 'Symbol Lookup' field and type in the company you are looking for. The symbol will be one to four capital letters long. It is the first piece of information given for each company in its streaming quote.
Read the stock numbers. The stock numbers will follow the stock symbols. The number is abbreviated with the letter 'K' standing for 1,000, 'M' standing for 1,000,000 and 'B' standing for 1,000,000,000. If you see 30K, this means that 30,000 shares of stock have been traded for that company.
Read the prices traded. This is the second piece of information behind your stock symbol, it shows the bid price, or what each share is going for at the current time. This number is given as a whole number and decimal. 186.50 means $186.50
Note the change of direction. The third thing to look at after your symbol is the direction change. This will tell you whether the stock has gone up or down since the previous day's trading. This symbol is an arrow head that is either pointing up or down. There are some tickers in the media that will use a plus or minus sign instead of an arrow head. You will also be able to tell this information by the color code given. A green color means up, and red means down. So a green arrow or plus sign means the stock's price has increased.
Read the amount that the stock price has changed. This is a number that indicates the specific change in price and is the final piece of information to read. Often, it will be green if it is an increase and red if it is a decrease. The color code system helps you to instantly visualize whether your stock has gone up or down. This number will be given as a percentage, 2.64%, of the previous trading price.

How to Read Stock Charts

Print out a sample stock chart to examine (see 'Additional Resources,' below). Stock charts can be set up on a daily, weekly or long-term format, but they all follow the same basic plan. Start at the top where you will see the stock symbol and date of the chart. Also at the top are the day's high, low, and closing prices and the volume of shares traded.
Look just below the top line of information. You will see an entry that says MA(30), MA (60) or some other number. This is the moving average. It is the average price of the stock over recent past. The number in parentheses tells you how many days the moving average covers. At the very bottom of the chart there should be a bar graph. This gives you the volume of shares traded each day the chart covers.
Examine the main graph between the top and the volume bar graph at the bottom. Each day's trading is usually represented by a short bar or 'candlestick.' The top of the bar indicates the high for that day and the bottom the low. If there is a graph line passing through these bars, it indicates the closing price.
Notice which way the graph of the stock price is pointed. If it is headed toward the upper right corner, the stock is in an upward trend. If it's pointed at the bottom right, it is in a downward trend. Sometimes the graph doesn't seem to be moving one way or the other, and traders call this a period of consolidation.
Understand the function of a stock chart. The point is to spot trends early so you can buy early in an upward trend and sell early in a downward trend. Traders use a number of indicators to do this. For example, look for price supports. A price support is a price below which the stock rarely drops. When it approaches the price support, it's likely to reverse the downward trend and start moving up. A price resistance is the same thing in reverse: a price the stock falls short of. If it gets close, the stock price tends to reverse direction and decline.

How to Find Stock Prices (5 Steps)

Peruse the Wall Street Journal, or WSJ.com (subscription required), the Financial Times, Barron's or the financial section of your local newspaper for closing stock prices of most listed stocks. If your investment horizon is long-term and your portfolio contains financially sound, high quality shares, real-time stock quotes of your holdings throughout the day may not be necessary to making buy and sell decisions. I
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Check stock price information through the trading day if you plan to buy or sell a company based on fundamental or technical information. Obtain this information by going online. Google Finance, MSN Money, DailyFinance from AOL and others offer free real-time price information about most exchange listed shares. Yahoo Finance offers streaming real-time information for a small monthly charge. MarketWatch consolidates news from a variety of market resources for busy investors. Streaming services for your mobile also provide access to real-time price information.Broker-dealers may provide real-time stock price information free of charge as a customer.
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Get quotes directly from the exchange floor throughout the trading day. NASDAQ offers a free stock market ticker to provide constant stock price updates as they occur on the trading floor. The New York Stock Exchange Euronext offers many free tools including charts of individual stocks and market indices during the trading day. Some market index information may be delayed up to 20 minutes, according to the NYSE.
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Check the Investor or Investor Relations page of each company's shares in your portfolio to stay advised of price and relevant information that impacts share value. Not all companies maintain a real-time price. If you are concerned about intra-day price movements, you should also use real-time stock price quotations.
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Watch CNN's cable television broadcast to obtain real-time ticker information about stock prices and market indices, as well as interviews with marketplace personalities. Many stock traders keep CNN on throughout the day to learn about news events that drive market moves while at home or in the office.
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How to Make a Prediction From a Stock Chart

Use indicators. In addition to the price of a stock over a given time period, most charts include data on volume and price moving averages as well as various meta-indicators that help interpret this data. The Relative Strength Indicator and Moving Average Convergence/Divergence oscillator are common indicators that most chartists use to confirm the strength of a trend.
Identify support and resistance. Some of the most useful information to a trader or investor is support and resistance levels. These are the price at which a stock has tendencies to be widely bought and sold. Often, price will react predictably at these levels, consistent with past performance. If these levels are broken by prices moving beyond them, however, they are still useful as confirmation of a major change in behavior.
Look for trend lines. Trends are what most investors and traders want to spot. By connecting tops or bottoms, chartists can draw a trend line and evaluate whether it's used as support or resistance in continuation of the trend.
Count wave patterns. Elliott wave counting is a complex and highly specialized chart-reading technique that can make powerful predictions about a stock based on the relative size and duration of price movements.
Read candlesticks. One of the oldest chart-reading techniques is the interpretation of candlesticks. Most have Japanese names because the technique was invented by rice traders in Japan. The relative shape and size of a candlestick's body and wick and its shape in relation to the candlesticks adjacent to it are widely believed to have predictive value.

How to Buy Kroger Stock (5 Steps)

Go to your favorite investment research site for a quote. Popular investment research sites include Yahoo! Finance, Google Finance, and MSN Money. While each website has its strengths and weaknesses, stock quotes for Kroger will be the same. The ticker symbol (exchange symbol) is KR. Input KR into the quote box for a current market price for the stock.
Research the stock on the investor relations section of the company's website. This website has contact information and stock price data as well. You can email Kroger's investor relations department at kroger.investors@kroger.com or call at 513-762-4366.
Determine the price at which you would like purchase Kroger stock by looking at the price chart over the past three years. This will help you to track highs and lows in stock prices. The goal is to buy low and sell high.
Determine how many shares you would like to purchase. If you have $5,000 to invest you can divide $5,000 by the current share price for Kroger for the maximum number of shares you can afford.
Place an order with your broker at BNY Mellon. BNY Mellon is the transfer agent and registrar for Kroger stock. You may be able to pay lower commissions if you purchase your Kroger shares through a BNY Mellon account (if you have one). If you do not have an account with BNY Mellon, place an order with your personal broker or through an online broker.

How to Buy Partial Shares of Stock (3 Steps)

Analyze your investment objectives and risk tolerance before you start researching companies that offer direct investment plans. Once you know the kind of stocks that are appropriate for your portfolio, look for companies that offer a direct stock purchase plan. Contact each company's investor relations department and request a plan prospectus and any other company disclosure statements that are available. Read this information carefully to ensure that you understand the plan's provisions, and select a company to trade with.
Open an account with the selected company's plan administrator. Complete a new account application if required, which will ask for some personal information, such as your name, address, contact information, and Social Security number. Some plans allow you to set up a regular, automatic investment plan that drafts a pre-determined checking or savings account. You'll be able to choose whether you want your dividends to be automatically reinvested into additional company shares or to be paid to you in cash, or whether you want a combination of the two.
Deposit the money for your purchase. When you first set up your account you might have to pay an application fee, set-up fee, or new account fee along with the amount of your initial purchase. Rather than purchasing a fixed number of shares of company stock, you'll be contributing a fixed dollar amount. The plan administrator will pool your money with money from all of the other plan participants and purchase company stock in one transaction. The plan administrator will divide the shares among each of the plan participants on a pro rata basis, which will likely result in both whole and partial shares credited to your account.

How to Buy Harley Davidson Stock (4 Steps)

Contact a stock broker. A list of stock brokers, working in the United States, is available in the resources section of this article. The stock broker will act as a middleman and purchase the Harley-Davidson stock on your behalf, which is necessary to carry out the transaction.
Study the stock information of the company before instructing your broker how much Harley-Davidson stock you would like to purchase. The page listed in the reference section will give you information regarding the current share price of Harley-Davidson and allow you to make an educated judgment on how much stock to buy through your broker.
Instruct your broker to make the purchase of Harley-Davidson stock on your behalf. They will contact Harley-Davidson, Inc. and buy the amount of stock you have specified.
Request a paper confirmation of your stock purchase by requesting a 'Direct Registration Transaction Request Form' from Computershare by calling 866-360-5339. Fill in the needed information and return it. You will receive a paper confirmation once the form is received and reviewed. This confirmation will serve as a proof of purchase and, if you wish, a memento of your first purchase of this iconic company's stock.

How to Check the Stock Market

Compile a list of the stocks that you currently own and those that you have interest in purchasing. It is almost impossible to monitor and track all of the stocks available, therefore developing a list of those that you have direct interest in is important.
Create a portfolio of your current holdings including share amounts and purchase prices. This can be done simply with a spreadsheet or with an on-line portfolio tracking program. This will help you keep your information well organized.
Sign up for alerts by ticker symbol for stocks that you have the highest interest in. This can be done through various on-line sites including Yahoo Finance and Google Finance. This type of alert system should also be available to you should you have an on-line trading account. In addition, periodically review market overview information at the home page of finance web sites.yahoo.comgoogle.com
Read all information on company websites and general news sites. A fast way to find information on a company that you are interested in is to search the web based on the trading symbol of the company.
Download and install financial trading and monitoring applications to your personal computer, laptop and smart phone to make sure that you have the ability to check the stock market whenever you need to. The benefit of technology is that investors have the ability to check the stock market as they need to and no longer check only the closing price printed in newspapers.
Develop and maintain a schedule to track and monitor the stock market so that you become accustomed to doing so on a regular and routine basis. Stock market investors learn through experience, knowledge and consistency. Letting your knowledge base lapse is a fast way to fall out of favor with the market as it changes so often and so fast.

How to Calculate Preferred Stock

Obtain the original price at which the preferred stock was issued. This is called the par value and can be found in the stock's prospectus. The prospectus is located on the company website; if not, you can ask your broker to provide the information.
Obtain the preferred dividend. The dividend can be found in the prospectus or provided by your stock broker. The prospectus may present the preferred dividend as a percentage rate of the par value; this is called a dividend rate. If so, multiply the rate times the par value. This will equal the preferred dividend.For example, if the prospectus gives a dividend rate of 6 percent and a par value of $25, the preferred dividend would equal $1.50 (.06*25=$1.50).
Use an online calculator to determine the required rate of return. This is the minimum rate that investors need before they invest their money. Sites such as Moneychimp.com, Money-zine.com and Investment Analysis Calculator (see Resources), are easy to use and provide accurate calculations for the required rate of return.
Divide the preferred dividend by the required rate of return. The result is the preferred stock price. This price is the highest amount you should pay per share. If you pay any more than this, you will be overpaying.