Every broker app and the official PSX data portal (dps.psx.com.pk) show a stock quote: a block of numbers about one company. At first it looks like a wall of figures. Once you know what each line means, you can read it in seconds.
We will walk through a real quote for Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDC), taken from the PSX data portal during trading on 1 October 2026.
The real quote
| Field | OGDC value |
|---|---|
| Price | Rs 313.39 |
| Change | -3.34 (-1.05%) |
| LDCP | 316.73 |
| Open | 316.81 |
| High | 317.45 |
| Low | 312.50 |
| Volume | 1,340,364 |
| Day range | 312.50 to 317.45 |
| Circuit breaker | 285.06 to 348.40 |
| 52-week range | 238.20 to 352.00 |
| P/E ratio (TTM) | 5.56 |
| VAR | 12.00 |
| Haircut | 15.00 |
| 1-year change | +13.26% |
| YTD change | +11.49% |
| Market cap (Rs thousands) | 1,347,867,951 |
| Shares | 4,300,928,400 |
| Free float | 645,139,260 (15%) |
These numbers change every few seconds during the session. Check the live page before acting on anything.
Price and change
Price is the last price at which OGDC traded. Change compares it with the previous day's closing price. Here the price is Rs 3.34 lower, a fall of 1.05%.
LDCP
LDCP means Last Day Closing Price: yesterday's official close. For OGDC it is 316.73. All of today's change figures and the circuit breaker limits are calculated from this number. You will see LDCP everywhere on the PSX, so it is worth remembering.
Open, high, low and day range
- Open: the first price of the day after the pre-open session (316.81).
- High and low: the highest and lowest prices traded so far today.
- Day range: the same two numbers shown as a band.
A wide day range means the stock is moving a lot today. A narrow one means a quiet session.
Volume
Volume is the number of shares traded today: about 1.34 million OGDC shares at the time of this snapshot. High volume means lots of buyers and sellers, so you can usually trade easily at a fair price. Very low volume (common in small companies) means you might struggle to buy or sell without moving the price.
Do not confuse volume with value. On 30 September 2026 the whole market traded 591 million shares worth Rs 20.2 billion. Cheap shares can have huge volume but little value.
Bid and ask
- Bid: the highest price a buyer is currently offering, with how many shares (bid volume).
- Ask (or offer): the lowest price a seller is willing to accept, with ask volume.
The gap between them is the spread. In busy stocks like OGDC the spread is usually a few paisa. In thin stocks it can be wide. If you place a market buy order, you usually pay the ask. In our snapshot, bid and ask showed 0.00 because the page caught a moment with no displayed orders. Your broker's app normally shows several levels of bids and asks (the "market depth").
Circuit breaker
The circuit breaker is the maximum range a share can trade in today. On the PSX it is currently 10% above or below LDCP, or Rs 1, whichever is greater.
For OGDC: 316.73 × 0.90 = 285.06, and 316.73 × 1.10 = 348.40. No trade can happen outside that band today. When a stock hits the top it is called "upper lock" or "upper circuit"; at the bottom, "lower lock". Lesson 5 explains this further, along with market-wide halts.
52-week range
The lowest and highest prices over the last year: 238.20 to 352.00 for OGDC. It tells you where today's price sits compared with recent history. A price near the 52-week high is not automatically "expensive", and one near the low is not automatically "cheap". It is context, not a signal.
P/E ratio
The price-to-earnings ratio divides the price by the earnings per share (EPS) over the last 12 months ("TTM", trailing twelve months). OGDC's P/E of 5.56 means investors are paying about Rs 5.56 for each Rs 1 of yearly profit.
A low P/E can mean good value, or it can mean the market expects profits to fall. Compare P/E with similar companies in the same sector, not across the whole market. Lesson 7 covers this in depth.
VAR and haircut
These matter mostly to traders and brokers:
- VAR (value at risk) is the margin percentage NCCPL uses for that stock when calculating risk on open positions.
- Haircut is how much the value of the shares is reduced when they are counted as collateral.
Higher numbers mean the exchange sees the stock as riskier. If you are buying with your own cash and not using margin, you can mostly ignore them.
Market cap, shares and free float
- Shares: the total number of shares the company has issued (about 4.3 billion for OGDC).
- Market cap: price × shares. The figure is shown in thousands of rupees, so OGDC was worth about Rs 1.35 trillion at that moment.
- Free float: the shares actually available for public trading, excluding blocks held by the government, sponsors or strategic holders. OGDC's free float is only 15%, because the government owns most of it.
Free float matters because PSX indices like the KSE-100 weight companies by free-float value, not total value.
Dividend yield
The PSX quote page does not always show dividend yield, and the PSX screener's yield figure is sometimes wrong. A safer method is to calculate it yourself:
Dividend yield = dividends per share over the last 12 months ÷ current price.
For OGDC, trailing dividends of about Rs 17 ÷ Rs 316.73 ≈ 5.4%. You can see each company's payout history on the "Payouts" tab of its PSX page or on our dividends page.
Other things you may see
- REG / FUT / ODL tabs: the regular market, the futures market and the odd-lot market. Beginners trade in REG.
- XD, XB, XR after a symbol (for example LUCKXD): the stock is trading ex-dividend, ex-bonus or ex-rights, so new buyers will not get that payout. Lesson 6 explains.
- 1-year and YTD change: how much the price moved over the past year and since 1 January.
Key points
- LDCP is yesterday's close. Today's change and circuit breaker limits are based on it.
- Volume shows activity. Bid and ask show what buyers will pay and sellers will accept.
- The PSX circuit breaker limits each stock to 10% up or down from LDCP (or Rs 1, whichever is greater).
- P/E compares price with yearly earnings. Free float is the tradable part of a company.
- Calculate dividend yield yourself from trailing dividends; do not trust a single screener figure.
Next lesson: PSX indices: KSE-100, KSE-30 and KMI-30. Live quotes are on our market page.