Stocks

How to read our stock and index analyses

A share is a piece of a company, and over the long run its price tends to follow earnings. In the short run, though, it moves on quarterly results versus market expectations, the company's own guidance, interest rates and overall risk appetite. An index such as the S&P 500 or the Dow Jones sums up many companies at once, and market-cap weighting means a handful of very large companies can drag it.

In this section we always distinguish the published figure — a close, an earnings result, an official number — from the media's interpretation of why it moved. When we calculate a change, we use two already-verified figures for the same instrument and the same price type, and say where each one comes from.

A one-day drop or rally rarely changes the case for a company. The full criteria are on the methodology page and technical terms in the glossary.