If a friend sent you this message--CU L8r 2nite--you'd have no problem understanding what she meant, right? But what if the same friend sent you this message?

HI 34.00 LO 28.34 FUN DIV 1.84 YLD% 6.1 PE 19 VOL100s 651 NETCHG - .13

If this friend happened to be in your Investment Club, you'd know that she was sending you the latest numbers from the stock that you're following. (Maybe you'll be discussing it when you see her later tonight!)

Text messaging has developed into almost a language of its own--the same could be said about stock quotes. At first, these shorthand terms might seem impossible to decipher, but you'll soon get the hang of what they mean once you know what the abbreviations stand for.

Stock quotes are found in stock tables, published in various newspapers' business sections. (We'll get to the Internet and other sources in just a bit.) You might have passed by these pages, with their rows and rows of tiny type, on your way to the funnies or the sports page. What could all of those numbers and odd abbreviations mean? And, why would you even want to look at stock tables?

Keeping track of a company's stock is one way to be an informed investor. The traditional way to do this--for the past century or so--has been to look up the numbers in a daily newspaper's stock table.

Stock tables vary somewhat from publication to publication, but they all have the same basic information. The sample below shows how one company's numbers, in this case Cedar Fair, L.P., might appear on a given day. (Cedar Fair owns and operates amusement and water parks.)