Stock FAQs

how to look up how much your stock was worth on purchase date

by Kaitlyn Turcotte Published 3 years ago Updated 2 years ago
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Try to find a record of the purchase date and price. If you can’t track that down, ask the company’s investor services or your brokerage firm for information. Brokers must now keep cost-basis data for stocks bought in 2011 or later, but most have older records.

Full Answer

How do I find a stock’s historical price?

Either way, you can easily find what you need using MarketWatch’s historical stock prices lookup tool. When you enter the ticker symbol and a date, you’ll get the information about the day’s trading for that stock. The close will be noted, along with the day’s high and low. The 52-week high and low will also be listed.

How do you find out how many stocks you own?

Alternatively, you can search for the stock at a stock exchange, brokerage or company site. Multiply the stock value by the number of shares you own. Repeat this process for every company in which you own stock.

How do I look up old stock certificates?

Begin your old stock certificate lookup by doing an online ticker search. Type the name of your company into a search engine and see if it still exists and what its trading symbol is. You may also be able to find information about your company's fate by doing a simple web search for the name of your company and "corporate history."

How do I use the stock calculator?

The Stock Calculator is very simple to use. Just follow the 5 easy steps below: Enter the number of shares purchased. Enter the purchase price per share, the selling price per share. Enter the commission fees for buying and selling stocks. Specify the Capital Gain Tax rate (if applicable) and select the currency from the drop-down list (optional)

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How do I find a stock price on a specific date?

Use the "Historical Stock Price Values" tool on the MarketWatch website to find stock prices for a specific date. Enter the symbol of the stock, or a keyword for the company if you don't know the stock symbol, into the first box in the tool.

How do you find the historical value of a stock?

A web resource for historic stock prices is Yahoo Finance (Stock Prices) - http://finance.yahoo.com/ . Stock prices go back to the 1070s. Begin by doing a search using the ticker symbol, then choose "Historical Prices" from the blue bar on the left; choose daily, weekly, or monthly data.

How do you find the purchase price of a stock?

Divide the total amount invested by the total shares bought. You can also figure out the average purchase price for each investment by dividing the amount invested by the shares bought at each purchase. Voila! You now have your average purchase price for your stock position.

How do I find the last year's stock price?

To access a stock's prices from a previous year, you first must pull up its current quote. On a financial website -- such as Daily Finance, Yahoo! Finance or USA Today Money -- type the stock's ticker symbol into the quote text box near the top of the page and click “Get Quote” or a similar button.

How do I find a stock price for a specific date in Excel?

1:197:11Getting Stock Price Historical Data for Specific Dates and Date ... - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipHere i think what i'm going to do first is do the open. So that's going to go in quotation marksMoreHere i think what i'm going to do first is do the open. So that's going to go in quotation marks commas that's going to be an opening. Price.

How do I find historical stock price in Excel?

There are two required inputs and a handful of option inputs available in the STOCKHISTORY function.STOCK - Ticker Symbol of the stock you want the pricing for. ... START DATE - The initial date you want pricing for. ... END DATE (Optional) - When you want the history to end (defaults to Start Date value)More items...•

What if you don't know the cost basis of a stock?

First of all, you should really dig through all your records to try and find the brokerage statements that have your actual cost basis. Try the brokerage firm's website to see if they have that data or call them to see if it can be provided.

What to do if cost basis is missing?

What if cost or adjusted basis is "missing" from 1099-B form? Should I leave it blank? No, The cost basis is the amount that you paid for the investment. If you leave it blank you will be taxed on 100% of the proceeds.

What is the total purchase price?

Total Purchase Price means the aggregate amount the purchaser is obligated to pay for merchandise or services pursuant to the purchase agreement, excluding any taxes, administrative charges, or financing charges.

Stock Total Return and Dividend Reinvestment (DRIP) Calculator

Note: The calculator does not account for spin-offs. Split adjustments are manual (read: not immediate).

How To Use the Dividend Calculator (DRIP)

To begin, you need to enter at least a stock ticker. As you type, it will search through legal stock tickers to help you complete the field and explore the set.

Source and Methodology of the Stock Total Return Calculator

The tool uses the IEX Cloud API on the backend. IEX Cloud is a paid API provider, so we have some (light) limitations in place:

Musings on the Any Stock Dividend Reinvestment Calculator

We originally built a version of this stock total return calculator for DQYDJ's five year anniversary (and 749th published article). Unfortunately, data sources came and went – and we're on iteration 3 or 4 now.

How to value a stock?

The most common way to value a stock is to compute the company's price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio . The P/E ratio equals the company's stock price divided by its most recently reported earnings per share (EPS). A low P/E ratio implies that an investor buying the stock is receiving an attractive amount of value.

What is the book value of a stock?

Price is the company's stock price and book refers to the company's book value per share. A company's book value is equal to its assets minus its liabilities (asset and liability numbers are found on companies' balance sheets). A company's book value per share is simply equal to the company's book value divided by the number of outstanding shares. ...

What is GAAP earnings?

GAAP is shorthand for Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, and a company's GAAP earnings are those reported in compliance with them. A company's GAAP earnings are the amount of profit it generates on an unadjusted basis, meaning without regard for one-off or unusual events such as business unit purchases or tax incentives received. Most financial websites report P/E ratios that use GAAP-compliant earnings numbers.

Why do investors assign value to stocks?

Investors assign values to stocks because it helps them decide if they want to buy them, but there is not just one way to value a stock.

How to find Walmart's P/E ratio?

To obtain Walmart's P/E ratio, simply divide the company's stock price by its EPS. Dividing $139.78 by $4.75 produces a P/E ratio of 29.43 for the retail giant.

What is value trap?

These types of stocks are known as value traps. A value trap may take the form of the stock of a pharmaceutical company with a valuable patent that soon expires, a cyclical stock at the peak of the cycle, or the stock of a tech company whose once-innovative offering is being commoditized.

Is a P/E ratio good?

A P/E ratio that is good for one investor may not be enticing to another. P/E ratios can be viewed differently by different investors depending on their investment objectives, which may be more strongly oriented toward value or growth. Value investors straightforwardly prefer low P/E ratios. A stock for which the valuation implied by ...

What to look for when you find an old stock certificate?

The most important feature to look for when you happen upon an old stock certificate is any signs of canceling. It may be a barely readable hand stamp or imprint, but if it is there, your stock is worth nothing on the stock market (although it may be valuable to collectors).

How to find out who the transfer agent is?

You can usually find out who the transfer agent is by speaking with the company's investor relations department. The transfer agent will help you to assign the stock to your name.

Does each security have its own CUSIP?

Each security has its own CUSIP and is assigned a new one whenever there is a reorganization , merger or acquisition. You can open an account at the CUSIP Service Bureau's website to conduct an online search, but it is likely more cost effective to have a broker do it for you.

Step 1: Head Down to the Library

There are reasonably priced databases although many of those are available at your local library.

Step 2: State Business Entity Search

Let's continue with Bowser Delaware Corp. from the previous steps example. The company was (as we assembled) incorporated in Delaware. From the state of Delaware we can receive the date of termination of the company and the company's last transfer agent which will be critical later on.

Step 3: Contact the Company's Transfer Agent

From our local library we were able to track down the various corporate changes that the company went through. From the Secretary of State's site we found a Business Entity Search. From this search we were able to gather the Transfer Agent information.

Step 4: Professional Help

At this point you have pieced together the entire corporate history for the shares that you own! If the transfer agent requires for you to get proof-of-purchase for your shares or any other legal matters arise it is at this point where professional help can be a very valuable resource.

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