Market order - This will tell your broker to buy or sell a security at the current market price. Market order is executed immediately at the best possible price available and the transaction is usually completed within a minute. It's generally the cheapest trades to place because there is little work or maintenance by the broker.

Limit order - When you give your broker an order to buy or sell a stock when it reaches a certain price or better. For example, if you place a limit order to buy a certain stock at $20 a share when its current market price is $23 a share, your broker will not buy the stock until its share price is $20 or lower. Or if you want to sell it at $20 and the market price is $18, your order will not be executed unless the stock reaches $20 or better. Limit order guarantees the price you will buy or sell a security at. Commissions on limit orders are usually more expensive than market orders.

Stop Order - This order instructs your broker to buy or sell a security once it trades at a certain price, called the stop price. Stop orders are entered below the current price if you are selling and above the current price if you are buying. For example, if you owned a stock currently trading at $35 a share that you feared might drop in price, you could issue a stop-loss order to sell if the price dropped to $30 a share to protect yourself against a larger loss. Once the stop price is reached, your order becomes a market order. If the price drops very quickly, and other orders have been placed before yours, the stock could actually end up selling for less than $30. If you don't want to sell it for less than $30, you can place a stop-limit order. With a stop-limit order, your order becomes a limit order instead of a market order once the stop price is reached.

All or None (AON) - An order to buy or sell a security must either fill the whole order or not fill it at all. However, the order isn't canceled unless it is also marked FOK, or fill or kill.

Fill-or-Kill - An order for immediate execution. If it cannot be filled immediately the order is automatically canceled.

Day Order - An order that expires at the end of the business day if it has not been filled.

GTC (Good Till Canceled) - If you want to buy or sell a security at a specific price (limit order), you can ask your broker to issue a good 'til canceled (GTC) order. When the security reaches the price you've indicated, the broker will execute the trade. This order stays in effect until it is filled, you cancel it, or the brokerage firm's time limit on GTC orders expires. A GTC, also called an open order, is the opposite of a day order, which is automatically canceled at the end of the trading day if it isn't filled.

How To Read Stock Quotes:
Columns 1 & 2: 52-Week Hi and Low - These are the highest and lowest prices at which a stock has traded over the previous 52 weeks (one year). This typically does not include the previous day's trading.

Column 3: Company Name & Type of Stock - This column lists the name of the company. If there are no special symbols or letters following the name, it is common stock. Different symbols imply different classes of shares. For example, "pf" means the shares are preferred stock.

Stock Quotes on a Financial Newspaper

Column 4: Ticker Symbol - This is the unique alphabetic name which identifies the stock. If you watch financial TV such as MSNBC, you'll probably  have seen the ticker tape move across the screen, quoting the latest prices alongside this symbol. If you are looking for stock quotes online, you always search for a company by the ticker symbol. If you don't know what a particular company's ticker is you can search for it at: http://finance.yahoo.com/l.

Column 5: Dividend Per Share - This indicates the annual dividend payment per share. If this space is blank, the company does not currently pay out dividends.

Column 6: Dividend Yield - The percentage return on the dividend. Calculated as annual dividends per share divided by price per share.

Column 7: Price/Earnings Ratio - This is calculated by dividing the current stock price by earnings per share from the last four quarters. For example if the company earns $1 per share for the last four quarters and if the price of the stock is $10, you'll have a P/E ratio of 10 ($10 divided by $1).

Column 8: Trading Volume - This figure shows the total number of shares traded for the day, listed in hundreds. To get the actual number traded, add "00" to the end of the number listed.

Column 9 & 10: Day High & Low - This indicates the price range at which the stock has traded at throughout the day. In other words, these are the maximum and the minimum prices that people have paid for the stock.

Column 11: Close - The close is the last trading price recorded when the market closed on the day. If the closing price is up or down more than 5% than the previous day's close, the entire listing for that stock is bold-faced. Keep in mind, you are not guaranteed to get this price if you buy the stock the next day because the price is constantly changing (even after the exchange is closed for the day). The close is merely an indicator of past performance and except in extreme circumstances serves as a ballpark of what you should expect to pay.

Column 12: Net Change - This is the dollar value change in the stock price from the previous day's closing price. When you hear about a stock being "up for the day," it means the net change was positive.

Stock Quotes on the Internet

Quotes on the internet:
Nowadays, it's far more convenient for you to get stock quotes off the Internet. This method is superior because most sites update throughout the day and give you more information such as news, charting, options, financials, research, etc.

To get quotes, simply enter the ticker symbol into the quote box of any major financial site like Yahoo Finance or CBS Marketwatch.. If you don't know the symbol you'll be able to search using the name of the company. The example on the left shows a quote for Microsoft (MSFT) from Yahoo Finance. Interpreting the data is exactly the same as with the newspaper. It ended the day with a price of $50.05. The lowest price of the day was $49.996 and highest price of the day was $52.676. It also has the 52 week low and high, volume, P/E ratio, etc. If you want to know more about the company just click on the appropriate links below for Chart, Financials, Historical Prices, Insider, etc.

**Recommended Reading**
	How To Make Money In Stocks This national bestseller relies on time-honored indicators such as quarterly earnings, market capitalization, and daily indexes. O'Neil's study of winning stocks stretches back to the 1960s, and he shares his insights here, describing what characterizes a growth stock, when to cut your losses  and how to spot a market top.

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