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 Cancel a Stock Certificate (5 Steps)

Retrieve the stock certificate from your broker, or vault, if it is stored in your possession.
Flip the stock certificate over and write 'VOID,' in bold letters, across the back of the certificate. Your broker can perform this task for you.
Record a date of cancellation, such as 'January 01, 2010' or '01/01/10.'
Jot down the transaction date printed on the right side of the certificate. Record the date in your books.
Figure the age of the canceled stock certificate. For example, 'Certificate 1234 was canceled on January 01, 2010, just nine months after the original transaction date.' Record this information in your books.

How to Read a Stock Ticker

Identify the ticker for your stock exchange. Financial websites and television stations may have multiple scrolling tickers. Business television stations may have up to three tickers displayed at one time.
Look for the company name, which is the first part of the ticker. If there is no company name, look it up using the stock symbol.
Read the stock ticker symbol, which is usually one to four letters long. NYSE stock symbols consist of up to three letters, while NASDAQ stock symbols consist of four letters. Some stock symbols may contain extensions, such as '.A' for a Class A stock or '.B' for a Class B stock. Class A shareholders typically have more voting rights than Class B shareholders.
Read the last-trade information, which may be of the format 'volume @ price.' For example, '14K @ 20' means the last trade was 14,000 shares at $20 each. The letters 'K' and 'M' mean 1,000 and 1 million, respectively.
Examine the price-change information, which consists of an up or down arrow and an amount. The arrows indicate whether the price has moved up or down since the last trading session and the amount indicates by how much. Some stock tickers may use color codes to indicate up and down price movements.

How to Read Volume on a Stock Chart

Start with the information that appears across the top of the chart. The first items are the date the chart refers to along with the name and ticker symbol of the stock. Next, you'll find price information, giving the day's high, low and closing figures for the stock. Along with this, you'll read the volume on a stock chart. This is the daily volume of shares traded. There's usually one more piece of information listed, called the moving average. This is indicated by the letters MA followed by a number in parentheses and a price. This is the average price the stock traded over the number of days indicated by the number in parentheses.
Look at the rest of the stock chart. You will see two graphs, one in the middle of the page and a bar graph across the bottom. The one in the middle will consist of a line graph with the line bracketed by a bar (also called a candlestick) for each day the chart covers. This is really three graphs in one. Those bars don't refer to the day's volume but to the price range for the stock each day. The top of each bar or candlestick shows the daily high, and the bottom shows the low. The line graph itself shows the closing price.
Examine the bar graph at the very bottom of the page. This graph records the volume of shares traded for each day the chart covers. The height of the bar indicates the number of shares traded. Use the scale (usually located on the far left) to determine how many shares the height of each bar represents.
Learn how to read volume on stock charts in the context of the other information you see on the chart. Changes in the volume of trading can be very informative. For example, if you see an increasing number of shares being traded and the stock is in an upward trend, it indicates that investors are bidding up the stock price. An experienced trader will watch for a drop in that volume that may signal the upward climb in prices is reaching its peak.