How does the share market work?

This week I was going to write about how the share market functions. However, in doing some research to find some entertaining videos for you, I actually found a very useful video that covers most of what I was planning to write about! Thus I will leave it to explain to you how the share market works...

As always, if you have any questions please leave them in the comments down below or email me, as I am happy to help!

Reading ASX quotes

Many of you have come to my blog to gain practical information on finance. Today I thought we would go through a practical exercise of reading and understanding what is meant when you look up a stock on an exchange.

We will move across the table from left to right, providing an explanation for each column.

Code: The code refers to the unique combination of letters used to refer to a particular company. For the ASX it is 3 letters, but other exchanges may have a different standard. In this case BHP refers to BHP Billiton Limited.
Last: Last refers to the last price that a trade took place. In this case $35.65.
%Chg: This is the percentage change from the close of the last trading day. In this example the share price has gone down -1.03%.
Bid: The bid is the highest amount that people hoping to invest will purchase the share.
Offer: Alternatively, the offer is the lowest amount that people hoping to sell their shares, will sell them.
Open: The open is where the first trade of the day occurred. BHP opened at $35.67 in this example.
High: This is the highest point that the share has traded today, for BHP this was $35.90.
Low: Conversely, this is the lowest point that the share has traded today, in this example $35.51.
Vol: Vol refers to the volume traded in the day so far. The volume means the number of shares traded, in this case 6,510,155.

I hope this will help you in illuminating journey to financial literacy! Next week we will be discussing the implications of these numbers.