A very familiar tool and probably a best friend among the players in the stock market is none other than the very useful stock ticker which can be found in any stock exchange. Now just to give beginners an idea of what this device does, basically, it just shows certain information about the stocks of a company. Without it, the players will not know which stocks they should invest, which stocks to buy, and which stocks to sell.

Now there are many ways to find these tickers as they appear almost everywhere for the sake of the investors. One may find these tickers on the news channel, the internet, or even in the newspaper. Of course if one stands outside the stock exchange or even goes inside, he will see a group of tickers everywhere he goes.

The first thing that one will see in this device would of course be the company name. Usually, the company names are abbreviated into around three or four letters. So if one does not know which letters represent the company, then he may look them up in the website or maybe even in the daily newspapers.

These tickers would also show which stocks are of class A and of class B. For those who do not know the difference between stocks that are of class A and of class B, the only difference would be in the voting rights of the stockholders. The stockholders of the class A stocks will typically have more voting rights than those of the class B ones.

Also shown on the device would be the current prices of the stocks. Usually, most tickers would show the highest price and the lowest price that the company has reached during the day as well as the opening price. At the end of the day, the ticker will be able to show what the current price is and what the closing price of a company is.

Now when it comes to the prices, there usually are symbols and colors that one must take note of. If the price of a certain company has gone up, then the text is usually in green and there is an upward arrow beside the company name. If the price has gone down, the font color is usually red and there is a downward arrow beside the company name instead.

Another thing that the ticker will flash would be the last number of shares that were sold for each company. Also, it would show the price at which these shares were sold. If for instance, a company sold fifteen thousand shares at twenty dollars, the device would show this information.

So basically, those are some of things to take note of when reading a stock ticker. It is always very important to first know how to read this thing before starting any trading. Since this is the device that will help the stockholder, it is always best to know how it works.