Learning Objective: Students will be able to convert stock market statistics from mixed numbers with fractions to mixed numbers with decimals.
Students will be able to understand the term "last" when it comes to prices of shares of stock.
Students will begin to understand the term "change" when looking at stock market statistics.
Question: How do we understand stock market statistical data as actual dollars and cents?
Motivation: We now have a practical use for all the times you've learned in school how to change fractions into decimals. When we talk dollars and cents, we're talking decimal numbers, aren't we?
Development with Pivotal Questions: When shares of stock are sold in any of the stock exchanges, prices of those shares rise and fall depending on how many shares are being bought or sold. The more in demand a company's shares are, the higher the value of its shares. The fewer potential shareholders there are for a certain company's shares, the lower the price per share of that company's stock.
Can you name a company that might have higher-priced shares of stock these days? Why do you think so? Let's see if we can think of a company that might have lower priced shares of stock.
Prices rise and fall by fractions of a dollar. Sometimes those fractions work out as decimal numbers which we do understand in monetary terms, such as 50 cents, 25 cents, etc., but other times they do not.
Look up the price per share for one of the companies we mentioned just a minute ago. Notice it says LAST all the way to the left. It also mentions a price that is a mixed number. the fraction part of the mixed number says 3/4. How much is three-fourths of a dollar? Notice the price for another company in the same industry. The denominator for their fraction is eight. How many cents is one quarter of a dollar? How many cents would have of twenty five cents be? Is one eighth half of one fourth? Then isn't one eighth of a dollar equal to the same twelve and a half cents (which is half of twenty five cents)? Let's see if other web sites list prices for shares of stock the same way the Stockmaster site does. In fact, let's see if other web sites list the same exact "last" price for the same companies we tried getting stock quotes on from Stockmaster.
Visit the Yahoo Stock Quote web site.
For a matter of comparison, also visit the CNN web site for stock quotes.
Convert from fraction into decimal the following stock quotes from various company's stock prices on various days
122 1/2
98 3/8
100 1/8
70 1/4
63 3/4
If a company's shares were selling at 120 3/4 and there was a change of +1/8, what would the new price per share be?
Conclusion:Ask the class what are the most important things they learned today in this lesson. Bring the learning objectives back into the conclusion. Ask: "What is meant by the term "last"? What is the web site you found easiest to use? Are prices per share quoted in fractional or decimal form ? Which mathematical operation do we perform to convert the fractions into decmals? Why do prices per share rise ? What is meant by the term "change" in stock market statistics?