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Stock Analysis

See the whole US market at a glance, learn the numbers that matter on a stock page, and find every single-stock guide on FintechZoom Pro, from Apple and Nvidia to Tesla and Walmart.

By (editorial team)Published Sources

S&P 500 heatmap by sector

Live data: TradingView

Live heatmap loads when you scroll or tap

Each box is an S&P 500 company: bigger box = bigger company, green = up today, red = down.

Quotes can be delayed. Tap a sector to zoom in. A heatmap shows one day's moves only, not whether a stock is a good investment.

Stock return calculator

Compare what you paid for a stock with the proceeds from selling it. Dividends add to your return and trading fees reduce it.

The break-even price is the lowest sale price per share that covers your purchase and fees after dividends.

Example trade

Gain or loss$330.00
Total return16.46%
Purchase cost$2,005.00
Break-even per share$98.50

Return is the gain or loss divided by the purchase cost including purchase fees. Taxes and dividend reinvestment are excluded.

Dividend income calculator

Estimate annual cash income, the amount of each payment and dividend yield from the share price and annual dividend per share.

Use the company's published dividend figures. A dividend may change or stop, and payment dates and amounts can vary.

Estimated income

Annual income$300.00
Income per payment$75.00
Dividend yield3.00%

Assumes equal payments over the year and the same number of shares throughout. Taxes and reinvestment are excluded.

How to read a stock quote

The figures you see on every stock page, including ours, and what each one tells you.

Market cap

Share price multiplied by the number of shares outstanding: the stock market's value of the whole company. It is why Apple, Microsoft or Nvidia take up the largest boxes on the heatmap.

EPS and P/E

Earnings per share (EPS) is net profit divided by shares. The price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) is the share price divided by EPS: how many dollars investors pay for one dollar of yearly profit. A high P/E usually means the market expects fast growth; a low one can mean value or trouble. Compare P/Es within the same industry.

Dividend yield

Yearly dividends per share divided by the share price. Many growth companies, such as Amazon, pay little or no dividend and reinvest profits instead; mature companies such as Chevron or Walmart pay regular dividends.

52-week range and beta

The 52-week range is the lowest and highest price of the past year. Beta compares a stock's swings with the overall market: above 1 means it has historically moved more than the market, below 1 less.

Volume

How many shares changed hands in a session. Unusually high volume often follows news such as earnings, and very low volume can mean wider bid-ask spreads.

Try it: P/E, earnings yield and dividend yield

Enter a share price, the company's earnings per share and its yearly dividend per share to see the ratios analysts quote. The earnings yield is the P/E turned upside down, which makes it easy to compare with bond yields. The payout ratio shows how much of the profit is paid out as dividends.

A company that makes a loss has no meaningful P/E. That is common for young growth companies, such as several of the EV makers we cover (see Lucid and Rivian).

Example numbers · change them

Valuation ratios

P/E ratio20.0x
Earnings yield5.0%
Dividend yield2.0%
Payout ratio40%

Real EPS and dividend figures come from the company's latest annual report (form 10-K) or quarterly reports (10-Q).

Why big losses are hard to recover

Losses and gains are not symmetrical. After a 50% fall, a stock has to double (+100%) just to get back to where it started. That is why position size and diversification matter as much as picking the right company, especially with volatile names such as GameStop, AMC orMullen.

Loss recovery

Gain needed to break even

Gain needed to recover43%
What $10,000 becomes$7,000

Fundamental vs technical analysis

Fundamental analysis asks what a business is worth: revenue growth, profit margins, debt, cash flow, competition and management. It is the main lens of our single-stock guides, such as Apple, Nvidia and Costco.

Technical analysis studies price and volume charts, trends, support and resistance and moving averages, to judge timing. It says nothing about the business itself, and patterns often fail.

Many investors combine both. Funds that track a whole market, such as the Nasdaq-100 tracker covered in our QQQ guide, avoid single-stock risk altogether. Browse every ticker on our stocks page.

Research checklist

Before you buy a single stock

0 of 6 Start with the company’s own filings before relying on opinions.

All Stock Analysis guides (41)

Every article in this topic, A to Z.

Related hubs

Topics readers of Stock Analysis often explore next.

Sources

  1. Stocks: investment products (U.S. SEC, Investor.gov)
  2. Beginners' guide to financial statements (U.S. SEC)
  3. EDGAR full-text search of company filings (U.S. SEC)
  4. How to read a 10-K (U.S. SEC, Investor.gov)
  5. Stocks (FINRA)
  6. Calculating your investment returns (FINRA)
  7. S&P 500 index overview (S&P Dow Jones Indices)
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