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214 CHAPTER 5 Stocks and Their Valuation

Stock Market Reporting

Up until a couple of years ago, the best source of stock quotations was the business

section of a daily newspaper, such as The Wall Street Journal. One problem with news-

papers, however, is that they are only printed once a day. Now it is possible to get

quotes all during the day from a wide variety of Internet sources.^19 One of the best is

Yahoo!, and Figure 5-8 shows a detailed quote for Abbott Labs. As the first row of the

quote shows, Abbott Labs is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the sym-

bol ABT. The first row also provides links to additional information. The second row

starts with the price of the last trade. For Abbott Labs, this was 4:03 P.M. on October

31, 2001, at a price of $52.98. Note that the price is reported in decimals rather than

fractions, reflecting a recent change in trading conventions. The second row also re-

ports the closing price from the previous day ($53.78) and the change from the previ-

ous closing price to the current price. For Abbott Labs, the price fell by $0.80, which

was a 1.49 percent decline. The trading volume during the day was 3,478,100 shares of

stock. In other words, almost 3.5 million shares of Abbott Labs’ stock changed hands.

Immediately below the daily volume is the average daily volume for the past three

months. For Abbott Labs, this was 3.1 million shares, which means that trading on

October 31 was a little heavier than usual.

The last item in the second row shows that Abbott Labs is scheduled to pay a div-

idend on November 15. As shown on the last row, the annual dividend is $0.84 per

share, so the quarterly dividend payment will be $0.21 per share. The third row

shows an ex-dividend date of October 11, meaning that the owner of the stock as of

October 10 will receive the dividend, no matter who owns the stock on November

15. In other words, the stock trades without the dividend as of October 11. The last

(^19) Most free sources actually provide quotes that are delayed by 15 minutes.
FIGURE 5-8 Stock Quote for Abbott Labs, October 31, 2001
Source:Stock quote for Abbott Labs, 10/31/01. Reprinted by permission. For an update of this quote, go to the web site http://finance.yahoo.com.
Enter the ticker symbol for Abbott Labs, ABT, select Detailed from the pull-down menu, and then click the Get button.

ABBOTT LABS (NYSE:ABT)

• More Info: News, Profile, Research, Insider, Options, Msgs - Trade: Choose Brokerage

Bid

N/A

Volume

3,478,100

Prev

Cls

53.78

Earn/Shr

1.08

Mkt

Cap

82.195B

Div/Shr

0.84

P/E

49.80

Yield

1.56

Ask

N/A

Ex-Div

Oct 11

Avg Vol

3,149,409

Open

53.50

Change

-0.80 (-1.49%)

52-week Range

42.0000 -

56.2500

Day's Range

52.98 - 53.99

Last Trade

4:03PM · 52.98

Div

Date

Nov 15

Small: [1d | 5d | 1y | none]

Big: [1d | 5d | 3m | 6m | 1y | 2y | 5y |max]

210 Stocks and Their Valuation