Dr. Sarah's Stock Market Statistics Lab Part 1 - One Per Person

NAME_________________________________ Circle one as your class time 9:30 or 11:00
  • From INTERNET EXPLORER, click on this lab from the main class web page. Recall that underlined links can be accessed by clicking on them on the web, and that "Back" will take you back to this web page.

    Total "Purchase" Price

    On a SEPARATE PIECE OF PAPER, choose your favorite stock symbol from the stock intro homework. Then answer the following questions on that other piece of paper
  • What is your stock symbols name?

  • What does this symbol stand for?

    Go to finance.yahoo.com, and enter your symbol in and then hit the "Get Quotes" key. Then click on "Chart", which is found under More Info. Tip - when on a stock page, hit Reload to update the pages, which change every 20 minutes or so. In the larger table of the stock below the picture, you may see Bid and Ask. Bid is the selling price, and Ask is the asking price that you must purchase at.
  • What is your Ask price? If you don't see an Ask price:(if you did go instead to the next bolded "dot" question below) Note that if the market is closed, or if your stock does not have 4 letters, then you may see n/a next to bid and ask. Each stock does have bid/ask prices, but only the Nasdaq stocks are publicly available (you could get the others by having an account at e-trade, or by asking a stock broker, but that is too complicated for now.)
    So, ONLY if you don't already have an Ask price, then take the Last Trade price and write that down here.
    Your ask price will be the Last Trade price +1/8, so now fill in your ask price above. Show work.
  • Note that the Ask price is a price per share. We will "buy" 100 shares. But this isn't the total cost, since we must also pay a commission fee. The following is from e-trade.
    Nasdaq (4 letter name): 19.95                    Other: 1, 2 or 3 letter name: 14.95
    You pay these fees each time you buy or sell. They may seem high, but standard commission fees were a couple of hundred dollars before the (relatively recent) advent of internet trading sites.
  • What is the total cost of purchasing your stock ( Ask price x 100 + commission fee)? SHOW WORK!


  • Show me your correct work. First come-first served. Ie - the first person who correctly does this and gets approved by me gets to track that stock. Everyone in the class must have a different stock to track. Once Dr. Sarah has approved your choice and math, transfer the information from your piece of paper to this sheet and then continue.

    Getting Historical Data from Yahoo and Converting it to an Excel Chart Follow Carefully!

    Finding the Data Open up a new browser (under File release on New Window)in Internet Explorer and type in
    http://chart.yahoo.com/d?s=nite
    BUT replace nite with your stock symbol (the 1,2 3, or 4 letters).
  • What is the Start Date?                           What is the End Date?

    Scroll down to the bottom and click on the link Download Spreadsheet Format Notice that commas separate the different data points. Excel only recognizes tabs as separators, so we are going (see below) to replace each comma with a tab before we put it in Excel.
    Under Edit, release on Select All, then under Edit release on Copy.

    Changing the Data In Word so that Excel Can Read It
    Open up Word, and under Edit, release on Paste.
    In Word, under Edit, release on Replace
    Next to Find what, type    ,           (We type a comma since we want to replace that with tabs.)
    Next to Replace with, type    ^t           (^t is Word's symbol for a tab.)
    Hit Replace All, then Ok. Close the Replace box.
    Under Edit, release on Select All. You will see that all of the data is now highlighted.
    Then go back under edit and release on copy.
    Under File, release on quit to quit Word (do not save the Word file).

    Working With the Data in Excel to Create a Chart
    Open up Excel and under Edit, release on paste.
    Notice that the Date will be in the first column, Open price in the 2nd, High price in the 3rd, Low price in the fourth, Close price in the fifth, and Volume in the sixth.
    If you see ##### or something like 7E+05 anywhere, that just means that Excel does not have enough room to display the entry. Make the column wider by going to the top right of the column, clicking when you see a small letter t with the horizontal part of the t actually as arrowheads, and holding down as you make the column bigger by pulling it to the right. You will probably need to make columns B and F wider.

    If row 1 is a blank row, and the words "date, volume,..." don't begin until row 2, then click on the gray 1 at the left of the row and then under edit release on delete.

    Whenever we are working with data, we first want to put it in increasing order.
    Notice that our data is in decreasing order, as the date goes from the most recent to the least recent.
    Click on A1. Click on the Sort Ascending icon in Word
    Notice that now the date is in increasing order.
    We want to change one more thing before we create an Excel graph.
    Click on B1
    Under Insert, release on Columns.
    Now there is an empty column between date and open.
    Click on G (which is now where the Volume is located)
    Under Edit release on Cut
    Click on B (the empty column)
    Under Edit release on Paste
    Notice that now our columns look like Date-Volume-Open - High -Low - Close

    To create our Excel graph
    Click on B
    Click on the key on the keyboard that has an apple with a bite taken out of it and hold this key down.
    Continue to hold the apple key down as you click on C then D then E then F.
    Then columns B thru F will all be selected.
    Under Insert, release on Chart
    Scroll down to stock and click on it
    Under Chart sub-type, the bottom right picture should be highlighted (Volume-Open-high-low-close)
    Press and hold to view a sample to ensure that you see something like this NITE Excel graph link
    Click on Next
    Click on Next a second time
    Under Chart title - type your stock symbol and your name.
    For example NITE - Dr. Sarah
    Then click on Finish.


    Save your excel document into the public folder/save files here folder as
    yourfirstnameyourstocksymbol.xls
    for example drsarahnite.xls
    Your excel document with the picture should look something like this link, although the dates, data and picture itself will be for your stock.
    Have Dr. Sarah check that it is correct before you print and send it to yourself on campus pipeline.
    Make sure that you have clicked on the graph and then print a copy for Dr. Sarah.
    Then, on campus pipeline, send a copy to yourself. You will use this again in a future lab.

    2 Web Graphs that show that different representations of similar data can be used to illustrate conflicting viewpoints.

  • Read through Dr. Sarah's NITE graphs web page - be sure to read the conclusion at the bottom of the second graph too!
  • Look for 2 graphs from finance.yahoo.com which chart your stocks progress that show that different representations of similar data can be used to illustrate conflicting viewpoints. Once you have chosen these two graphs with conflicting viewpoints, discuss them below.
  • What is the time frame of your 1st graph and what does it show?












  • What is the time frame of your second graph and what conflicting viewpoint does it show?