In most newspapers, you'll find a page displaying stock prices — showing figures like Open, Close, High, Low, Volume, and P/E for the individual stocks covered. These are stock price tables. Some contain more data points, others fewer, but they're all telling the same story, just in varying degrees of detail.
Stock price tables can look intimidating at first glance to a beginner, but once you understand what each column represents, you'll be able to glance at any stock and immediately understand what happened to it during the trading day.
If you desire to invest in the stock market, you must know how to read stock prices - you must understand the price table
Below is a sample price table using five well-known NGX-listed companies — Dangote Cement (DANGCEM), MTN Nigeria (MTNN), GTCO, Zenith Bank (ZENITHBANK), and BUA Foods (BUAFOODS). The figures are for illustration purposes only, but they follow the exact format you'll see on real market data platforms, including 247market.info.
The Key Parts of a Stock Price Quote or Table
When you look up a stock — say, on a financial page, the NGX website, a trading app, or a portal like 247market.info — you'll typically see several numbers alongside the company name.
Let's decode them one by one.
Ticker Symbol
Every listed company has a short code called a ticker symbol used to identify it on the exchange. For example:
- DANGCEM — Dangote Cement Plc
- MTNN — MTN Nigeria Communications Plc
- GTCO — Guaranty Trust Holding Company Plc
- ZENITHBANK — Zenith Bank Plc
- BUAFOODS — BUA Foods Plc
The stock prices and valuation metrics
| Stock | Prev. Close (₦) | Open (₦) | High (₦) | Low (₦) | Close (₦) | Change (₦) | % Change | Volume | Trades | Market Cap (₦) | P/E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DANGCEM | 520.00 | 522.00 | 535.00 | 518.50 | 532.50 | +12.50 | +2.40% | 1,245,300 | 850 | 9.07 trillion | 18.2 |
| MTNN | 245.00 | 246.50 | 249.00 | 243.00 | 248.00 | +3.00 | +1.22% | 3,102,400 | 1,204 | 5.03 trillion | 14.6 |
| GTCO | 72.00 | 72.50 | 75.00 | 71.80 | 74.50 | +2.50 | +3.47% | 15,432,600 | 2,310 | 2.19 trillion | 5.8 |
| ZENITHBANK | 50.00 | 49.80 | 51.20 | 48.50 | 49.00 | -1.00 | -2.00% | 9,876,500 | 1,675 | 1.54 trillion | 4.9 |
| BUAFOODS | 417.00 | 417.00 | 428.50 | 416.00 | 425.00 | +8.00 | +1.92% | 890,450 | 540 | 7.65 trillion | 22.3 |
(All figures above are illustrative examples for learning purposes, not live market data.)
Now let's break this table down, column by column, so you understand exactly what each number is telling you.
1. Previous Close
This is the price the stock finished at on the last trading day, before today's session began. It's the baseline every other number in the row is compared against.
Example: DANGCEM's previous close was ₦520.00. Everything else in today's row — how it opened, how high or low it went, and where it closed — is measured against this starting point.
2. Open
The open is the price at which the very first trade of the day happened, once the market opened. It reflects how buyers and sellers priced the stock right at the start of trading, often influenced by overnight news or investor sentiment carried over from the previous session.
Example: BUAFOODS opened at ₦417.00 — the same as its previous close, meaning there was no significant price shift between sessions before trading began. DANGCEM, on the other hand, opened at ₦522.00, slightly above its ₦520.00 previous close, hinting at early buying interest.
3. High
This is the highest price the stock reached at any point during the trading session — the peak that buyers were willing to pay.
Example: GTCO touched a high of ₦75.00 during the day, even though it eventually closed lower at ₦74.50. This tells you demand pushed the price up at some point, but it cooled off slightly before the close.
4. Low
The opposite of High — this is the lowest price the stock dropped to during the session.
Example: ZENITHBANK's low was ₦48.50. Comparing this to its high of ₦51.20 shows the stock had a fairly wide trading range that day, which can suggest higher volatility or more active trading interest.
5. Close
This is the final price at which the stock traded before the market closed at 2:30 PM. It's the most-watched number of the day because it becomes tomorrow's "Previous Close," and it's typically the price used to calculate portfolio values and daily gains or losses.
Example: MTNN closed at ₦248.00 for the day.
6. Change (₦)
This shows the Naira difference between today's Close and the Previous Close. It tells you, in absolute terms, how much value the stock gained or lost.
Formula: Change = Close − Previous Close
Example: ZENITHBANK: ₦49.00 − ₦50.00 = −₦1.00. The stock lost one Naira in value per share today.
7. % Change
This converts the Naira change into a percentage, which makes it easier to compare performance across stocks with very different price levels.
Formula: % Change = (Change ÷ Previous Close) × 100
Example: GTCO's change of +₦2.50 on a previous close of ₦72.00 gives:
(2.50 ÷ 72.00) × 100 = +3.47%
This is why % Change matters more than raw Naira change for comparison — a ₦2.50 move means much more to a ₦72 stock (GTCO) than it would to a ₦520 stock (DANGCEM). Even though DANGCEM moved by a larger Naira amount (+₦12.50), its percentage gain (+2.40%) was actually smaller than GTCO's (+3.47%).
8. Volume
Volume is the total number of shares that changed hands during the trading session — in other words, how many units of the stock were bought and sold.
Example: GTCO recorded a volume of 15,432,600 shares — far higher than BUAFOODS' 890,450 shares. High volume generally signals strong investor interest and better liquidity, meaning it's easier to buy or sell the stock without significantly moving its price.
9. Trades
While volume tells you how many shares were traded, "Trades" (or "Deals") tells you how many separate transactions occurred to make up that volume. Comparing the two gives insight into whether trading was dominated by a few large transactions or spread across many smaller ones.
Example: ZENITHBANK had 9,876,500 shares traded across 1,675 trades — an average of roughly 5,895 shares per trade. This mix of high volume with a solid number of trades suggests broad-based participation rather than one or two large block deals.
10. Market Cap
Market capitalization represents the total market value of the company, calculated as:
Market Cap = Close Price × Total Outstanding Shares
This figure matters because share price alone doesn't tell you how big a company is. A ₦49.00 stock (ZENITHBANK) can still represent a company worth well over a trillion Naira, depending on how many shares exist.
Example: In our table, DANGCEM has the highest market cap at ₦9.07 trillion, despite BUAFOODS having a higher per-share price growth. This is because DANGCEM has a much larger number of outstanding shares in the market.
The aggregate of the market capitalization of all the securities that are listed and traded gives you the market capitalization of value of the stock exchange, in the case of Nigeria (NGX). This is reported daily along with the All Share Index.
11. P/E (Price-to-Earnings Ratio)
This is the most common valuation metric often displayed alongside stock prices.
The P/E ratio tells you how much investors are currently paying for every ₦1 of the company's earnings. It's calculated as:
P/E = Share Price ÷ Earnings Per Share (EPS)
- A high P/E (like BUAFOODS at 22.3) can mean investors expect strong future growth — or that the stock may be trading at a premium.
- A low P/E (like ZENITHBANK at 4.9 or GTCO at 5.8) can suggest a stock is undervalued relative to its earnings — or that the market has concerns about future growth, especially common among banking stocks.
P/E is most useful when comparing companies in the same sector. Comparing GTCO's P/E (5.8) to ZENITHBANK's (4.9) is meaningful since both are banks; comparing either to DANGCEM's (18.2) is less useful, since cement and banking are different industries with different growth and risk profiles.
52-Week High and Low
Some stock price tables will show the 52-week high and low numbers. This shows the highest and lowest prices the stock has reached over the past year. It helps you understand where the current price sits relative to its recent history — is it near a peak, or trading at a discount?
Knowing the current price of a stock, its 52-week high, 52-week low, and its P/E ratio all help an investor in selecting stocks to buy. They are critical parts of analysing a stock.
Understanding the NGX All-Share Index (ASI)
Beyond individual stock prices, you'll often see the NGX All-Share Index (ASI) quoted in the news — something like "NGX ASI closes at 105,432.67 points, up 0.8%."
The ASI tracks the overall performance of all listed equities on the exchange. Think of it as a thermometer for the entire Nigerian stock market: when it rises, it generally means most stocks (weighted by market value) gained ground; when it falls, the broader market is under pressure.
Putting It All Together: Reading DANGCEM's Row
Let's walk through one full row to see how all these numbers tell a complete story:
DANGCEM opened at ₦522.00, slightly above its previous close of ₦520.00, showing mild early buying interest. During the session, it climbed as high as ₦535.00 before pulling back, and never dropped below ₦518.50. It eventually closed at ₦532.50 — a gain of ₦12.50, or +2.40% — on a healthy volume of 1,245,300 shares across 850 trades. With a market cap of ₦9.07 trillion and a P/E of 18.2, DANGCEM remains one of the most valuable companies on the NGX, trading at a premium reflective of its scale and earnings growth.
That's the essence of reading a stock price table — each column adds a layer of context, and together they paint a complete picture of a stock's daily performance.
Bid and Ask Prices: The Basics of Order Matching
When you place an order to buy or sell shares on the NGX, you'll come across two more terms:
- Bid price: the highest price a buyer is currently willing to pay
- Ask (offer) price: the lowest price a seller is currently willing to accept
The difference between these two is called the bid-ask spread. Narrower spreads typically indicate more actively traded (liquid) stocks — think MTNN or DANGCEM — while wider spreads are common with less-traded stocks.
Tips for Beginners Using Price Tables
- Always compare Change in percentage, not just Naira, especially across stocks with different price levels.
- Check Volume and Trades together — high volume from many trades signals broader market confidence than high volume from just a few large deals.
- Use Market Cap, not price, to judge company size. A "cheap" stock isn't necessarily a small company.
- Compare P/E within the same sector for a fair read on valuation.
- Watch the High-Low spread to gauge how volatile a stock was during the session.
Final Thoughts
A stock price table may look like a wall of numbers at first, but each column has a specific job: showing you where a stock started, how far it moved, how much interest it attracted, and how the market currently values the company behind it. Once you can read these eleven data points fluently, you'll be equipped to evaluate any NGX-listed stock with confidence.
At 247market.info, we present real-time price tables across all NGX-listed stocks in this exact format — so you can put these skills to use as you begin (or grow) your investing journey.
