Risk
52-Week Range
The 52-week range is the highest and lowest traded price over the past year, and where the current price sits inside it.
The 52-week high and low are the simplest map of the past year. A stock trading on its low has spent a year being marked down from somewhere higher. That can be a broken story or a disliked good business. A stock trading on its high has the opposite problem: good news may already be in the price. The range does not tell you which. It tells you what the argument has already done to the quote.
Stocklytics keeps a list of stocks near their 52-week lows so you can see the names the market has pushed down, with price and market cap attached. Use it as a starting screen, then open the stock for earnings, debt, and the reason the low was printed. Proximity to a low is a location, not a thesis.
Formula
52-week position = (price − 52-week low) ÷ (52-week high − 52-week low)
Live example
Apple Inc. (AAPL) last printed at $345.33 with a market cap of $5.04T. This quote does not include a 52-week high and low, so the range example stops at the live price.
Related
Drawdown · Volatility · Market Cap
See it on a list: best stocks · screener
Questions
Does 'at the low' mean it cannot fall further?
No. A 52-week low is only the low so far. New lows happen. The range updates every session.
Should I buy highs or lows?
Buying highs means buying strength, which works when momentum and fundamentals agree. Buying lows means buying disagreement. Both need a reason beyond the range.