Guide to Times’ New Stock, Mutual Fund Listings

The Times has revised its stock and mutual fund listings. The aim is to make the data easier to read and more relevant.

Among the key changes:

* Type has been made more readable where possible.

* Stocks now are priced in decimals rather than fractions.

* A new figure--”volume percentage change”--replaces actual share volume for each stock in The Times’ tables.

Volume percentage change compares the previous day’s volume in a stock with its average volume for the last 65 days. Significant changes in volume can be an important indicator of a stock’s trend.

* More stock mutual funds are now listed daily, and each fund’s daily change is expressed in percentage terms rather than in dollars and cents, to quickly show relative performance.

* Other than the largest bond mutual funds, daily price information is no longer shown for bond funds, because bond fund prices generally change little on a day-to-day basis.

However, the largest-bond-funds table accounts for the vast majority of bond fund assets. And data on most other bond funds will still be published each Sunday.

* The Times is now using Morningstar Inc. for mutual fund data instead of Lipper Inc. The two services abbreviate fund names differently. In a few cases, the differences will change the order in which mutual funds and fund families appear in the tables.

In particular, Morningstar has grouped most classes of funds under a single family name. For example, Merrill Lynch A, B, C and D funds now appear under a single header, Merrill Lynch.

For more details, go to: http://161.35.110.226/markets.

We are interested in reader reaction to the tables. If you have any questions or comments, e-maildaniel.gaines@latimes.com, or leave a message at: (213) 237-4557.