Stock quotes can be obtained in newspapers and online but the most convenient place is online as it is very close to real time information. Website like Yahoo!Finance and rediff help you get real-time quotes at a mouse-button click. Different sources provide different sets of information. Some might provide with detailed information like corporate actions, mutual fund activity in the shares in addition to some basic price information. Below is the list of common figures in the stock quote details:

52-week High/low : These are the highest and lowest price recorded in the last 52 weeks. The highest/lowest price figures for past 52 weeks can help make a judgement whether or not you should invest in stock at current price .

Days Range: It is the price range within which a stock has traded on a day. It thus consists of high/low price the stock has touched in a day.

PE: It is the Price to Earnings Ratio of the stock (per-share earnings by closing price).

Open and Close: Close is the last price quoted on a stock during a day. Open price is the opening price at which stock starts trading for a day. Opening price may not be same as the closing price of the stock on previous day.

Bid and ask prices: Bid price is the price a buyer is willing to pay for a stock while ask/offer is price at which seller is willing to accept the stock.

Trade volume: It is the quantity of shares traded on the stock exchange on a day. It helps you determine the liquidity of stock as you might land up in trouble if you want to sell your share and there is no one to buy it

Percentage change: It refers to the percentage change between current stock price w.r.t to its previous close.

Market Capitalisation: It gives you an insight into the company’s equity capital available for trading and is the price of each share multiplied by number of equity shares outstanding.

Dividend: Some quotes also give the last dividend paid to the shareholders and can be useful in determining how much and what type of dividend can be expected from the company. This also details their record date, ex date so that you can decide upon what time will be right to invest in the stock to avail the dividend.

Renuka Kinger

Well things need not be in that order and you can have all the THREE together. Sounds incredible! The simple explanations are:

Roadmap

1. Secure your basic needs, food, clothing and shelter, taking into account your own financial status (real and not based on aspirations)

2.  Understand that a ‘truly rich’ person has expenses lesser than income. Someone earning Rupees 1,00,000 monthly, with an expense of Rupees 1,10,000 would be poorer than a person earning, Rupees 25,000 and having an expense of Rupees 20,000 in the same period.

3.  Prepare a budget, with some saving planned and FOLLOW IT.

4.  Understand the difference between Assets and Liabilities clearly. Very simply speaking, an investment bringing in revenue is an Asset and the one requiring an outflow of funds (expense) is a Liability.
(Source for points 2,4 is the book Rich Dad Poor Dad)

5.  Understand simple rules of income and wealth tax planning so that maximum rebates legally allowed can be availed. Save for the above on regular monthly basis and do not wait for the year end (blues)

6.  Save regularly in safe instruments like P.P.F, Life Insurance, Medical  Insurance (very important to cover unforeseen medical expenses besides tax saving), ULIP s through the systematic investment route.

7.  Plan for the retirement and children’s education through appropriate insurance policies taken at an early age.

8.  Understand your own risk and age profile-simple rule is that you can take higher risk when you are younger.

9.  Follow Warren Buffet’s advise for stock market investments ‘when others are greedy, be cautious and when others are cautious, be greedy’. You need to be VERY CAREFUL and never follow a herd mentality.

10. Buy Cheap (economically) to be Rich. Buffet is known to tire the sellers through persistent negotiations and good knowledge till he gets a deal at the rock bottom price. You too can do the same.

11.Listen to all advice, but have a healthy skepticism for the ‘Financial Solution Providers’. Nothing wrong with them, but they have their own agendas as well, besides your interest. (Personal or Corporate)

12. Understand the power of Compounding and start saving as soon as you start earning.

13. Always aim to ‘Get More Bang Out of Your Buck’ and be on the lookout for stretching the buying power of your money. As the saying goes ‘ Marwari businessmen get Five Quarters worth of value out of every Rupee’ as against the normal Four Quarters worth.

14. Do not be shy to learn, the above trait is not hereditary, it can be learnt / acquired.

15. Pay Cash and do not subscribe to a lifestyle based on loans (E.M.I). DO NOT MOTGAGE YOUR FUTURE FOR TODAY.

16. Use Credit Cards where essential, e.g. travel and hotel bookings and not for lifestyle purchases. This will lead to excessive and impulse buying, creating undue pressure.

17. To get  thrill from your acquisitions, work, save and plan for them so that you can look forward to acquiring them one by one. Very affluent societies take many material possessions as granted and hence  are either in the race for more or bigger liabilities (note difference between assets and liabilities) or become disillusioned and start looking for ‘meaning of life’ through other means.

Economic independence should be your aim and you can achieve it by not only increasing your earning power, but by controlling your expenses, providing for the future and being debt free.

CONCLUSION

This roadmap, if followed will help protect and enhance your wealth, keep you Relaxed as you would not be in the race to ‘Keep Up With The Joneses’ and would not be worried about the next call from the bank (EMI).

Enjoy what you have acquired and be at Peace! Amen.

Arun Vedhera

“ A stock broker is one who invests other people’s money until its all gone.” -Woody Allen, American Film Maker

“ Average investors who try to do a lot of trading will only make their brokers rich.” -Michael Jenson,
Finance Professor -Harvard.

“ We have two classes of forecasters: Those who don’t know and those who don’t know they don’t know.” -
-Jhon Kenneth Galbraith.

“ Most investors don’t even stop to consider how much business a company does. All they look at are earning per share and net assets per share.” -Kenneth L Fisher, Stock Market Guru.

“ Bulls make money.  Bears make money. Pigs get slaughtered.” -Anonymous

“ Buy high and sell low.  What investors should not do, but it happens far to often.” -Anonymous.

“ If you’re going to panic, panic early.” -Anonymous.

“ Markets change, tastes change, so the companies and the individuals who choose to compete in those markets must change.” -An Wang.

“  I never attempt to make money on the Stock Market.  I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day the next day not reopen it for five years.” -Warren Buffet.

“ Sometimes your best investments are the ones you don’t make.’ -Donald Trump.

“ Investment Management; An Exercise where you make major decisions, in public, on the basic of filmsy information in a system largely governed by chance, when you may be wrong 50% of the time, …and you have to go back and do it again.” -Richard Vancil, Harvard Business School

“ He’s called a broker because after dealing with him you are.”  -Anonymous

“ The road to success in investing is paved with independce of spirit, decisiveness and the courage of one’s conviction” -Peter L. Bernstein.

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