Investor Education: Continuous Online Updates Help You Monitor Stock Market

For starters, a quick glance at the home page will tell you how the major market indexes are doing. You will find that day's performance (with a 20-minute delay) for the Dow Jones industrials, Nasdaq, S&P 500 and small-cap S&P 600 near the top of the page.

Directly below the performance data, you can view the day's biggest winners and losers on heavy volume.

The Stocks On The Move lists, which automatically refresh every two minutes, also reflect prices with a 20-minute delay. But they can help you spot trends.

How it works: For instance, if you see a number of solar power, marine shippers or oil and gas stocks on the up list, you'll know that those groups are likely leading the market.

To the left of Stocks On The Move is the In The Market section. Here you can get timely market updates six times a day, starting with a pre-market-open column that highlights foreign markets' action, economic data, expected earnings reports or other news that could affect Wall Street each day.

The second update, which gets posted about 10:15 a.m. ET, fills readers in on how the market opened and which stocks are making big moves up or down in the first hour of trading.

The next three updates go up on investors.com at 11:15 a.m., 1:15 p.m. and 3:15 p.m. (all Eastern), and keep you updated on any news or events that may have changed the direction of the market. Other big moves or major reversals by leading stocks are noted as well.

The final update, at 5:15 p.m. Eastern, gives preliminary closing performance and volume data for the market indexes.

Don't forget to read each day's The Big Picture column, which runs on the front page of the newspaper. Online, simply click on Today In IBD under the News & Analysis section on the left-hand side of the home page, then select The Big Picture.

The column reviews the daily market action, including relevant economic data or news, big movers among leading stocks and follow-through or distribution days.

For more of the day's biggest heavy-volume winners and losers among leaders, check out the daily NYSE and Nasdaq Real Most Active columns. You can select both from the Today In IBD.

Tips and tricks: Don't forget to watch the major market indexes' price and volume action on a daily and weekly chart as well. This will help you spot warning signs such as distribution days, as well as follow-throughs and other market turns.

Investors.com makes it easy to access the Dow, Nasdaq, S&P 500 and S&P 600 charts. Simply click on the index name at the top of the home page where its performance is given, and a small daily chart will open. For a bigger chart, click on "Enlarge View," which you will find just below the chart on the left side.

A detailed IBD chart will pop up in a new window. Want to see a weekly chart? On the larger daily chart, just click on the tabs along the top. Subscribers to Daily Graphs Online have more choices, including intraday charts.

If you go back to the original window with the small daily chart on it, you also can view how the IBD 100, New America and 85-85 Indexes are faring. It's a fast and easy way to keep track of leading stocks' performance.