Below we explain some of the most important terms used on stock quotes pages.

Price
During market hours, the Price column shown for London Equities is the last automatic trade price for a security in the SETS trading system, or the mid-price for a security in SEAQ or SEATS. If the market is currently closed, it will show the closing price. The price shown is used when calculating the change from the previous day's closing price. The time below the price shows the time that price was quoted. If the stock hasn't traded today, the last date of trading will be shown in place of the time.
(Please note that for non-SETS stocks, the Price is the latest mid-price available.)

Change
This shows the change in Price (see above) for the day. It is the difference between the currently shown Price and the previous day's closing price (i.e. 'Prev Close' - see below). The change is reported as 0 if the stock hasn't traded today.
(Please note that for non-SETS stocks, the Change is equal to the latest mid-price change.)

Prev Close
The closing price for the trading day prior to the Price currently being reported. On weekends, Thursday's closing price is shown here, even though Friday's close has occurred, because Thursday is the day prior to the current 'Price' value, even on a Sunday!
(Please note that for non-SETS stocks, the Closing Price is equal to the latest mid-Closing price available.)

Open
Opening price for the day; first trade of the day. This is not always the same as the previous day's closing price, especially when company news is released after the stock market closed the previous day.

Earn/Shr
Net income divided by the current number of shares outstanding. This is one of the principal elements used in determining at what value the shares should trade.

Bid / Ask
The Bid price is the price you will get if you sell your stock, and the Ask price is the price you have to pay to buy a stock.

Volume
Volume is the trading volume during the current trading day - i.e. the amount of shares traded.

P/E
Price-to-earnings ratio: a measure of a share's price in relation to its last 12 months' earnings per share. Often, the higher the sustainable growth rate of a company, the higher its price-to-earnings ratio.

Mkt Cap
The Market Capitalisation is calculated by multiplying the Last Trade by the current number of shares outstanding for a given type of stock on a given market. Shares outstanding is updated weekly and is provided by DataScope.

Day's Range
The lowest and highest prices of a stock during the current trading day.

For more information about stock data, the stock market, and investing in general, see the Yahoo! Directory's investment category, or have a look in the Financial Glossary.