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If you're just starting out learning how the stock market works, reading the stock tables in the paper can be confusing. Learning how to read stocks won't take much time, though, and it's very important.

Let's look closer at the table. You'll notice that there are twelve columns in the table; each stock has a line of its own. Let's examine the first two columns, which are usually named something like "52W High" and 52W Low." These tell you about the stock's performance over the last year. You'll see the highest point the stock has achieved in the last 52 weeks in the "52W High" column. Its lowest value will be in the "52W Low" column.

The next column is the name of the stock itself, followed by another column showing the stock's ticker symbol. There's a unique combination of letters for each stock. Perhaps you'll even recognize a few (or more than a few) of these tickers. They periodically run across the bottom of the screen of cable news networks.

Speaking of which, watching the financial shows on these networks will give you further help on how to read stocks and other aspects of the stock market.

There's another column next to the ticker column, and it's labeled "Div." From this column, you see how much in annual dividends the stock pays out for every share. Many rows will have this column blank, which means they don't currently pay out dividends. The same rule also applies to the very next column, "Yield %", the percentage return on the dividend.

The earnings ratio is indicated by P/E. You get this number by dividing the current stock price by the earnings per share for the last four quarters.

"High" and "Low" are the next two columns. These are the highest and lowest points that the stock reached in the day's trading. "Close" is the point at which the stock closed that day, and "Net Change" shows the change from the day before.

Once you're armed with a good working knowledge of how to read stocks, you can begin to delve into other aspects of the market.