Yahoo! the company has imploded and has been passed by, beset by data leaks, associated bad press, and poor management. Perhaps it will turn around and become relevant again; perhaps not. Despite the parent company’s issues, one service, Yahoo! Finance, remains an outstanding free resource for investors doing company research. Here is the link to the Finance home page:
Company Research
Once on the Finance home page, there are a lot of options for you. If you want to research a particular company, type in the name of the company or the ticker symbol if you already know it in the top search box. The stock quote you get is 20 minutes delayed, which is fine for research purposes. The Chart feature has been enhanced. In addition to the standard length-of-time charts (1 day, 5 days, 1 month, etc.), you can now choose a specific date range of any length. Very nice feature on a free site! You can also add various standard technical Indicators – moving average, relative strength, and Bollinger bands, for instance.
Historical Data
I have used Yahoo! Finance a lot for historical price data research. Type in the time period and voila! What I find very useful is that you can download the historical price data into an Excel spreadsheet and work with it – graph it, compare it with other stocks or etf’s, overlay indicators to see how they work. It is very helpful for backtesting. If you are working on a major quantitative investing program, you can use Yahoo! Finance as your source of data. Again, very nice for a free resource.
Other Information
If you are looking at a particular company, you can click the other links under the company’s name and current price to learn more about that company. Conversations: If you want to add your two cents about something related to the company, you can here. Statistics will take you to a lot of data. In Profile, in addition to a description of what the company does, you can see who is running the place. Financials will take you to the company’s balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement for past few annual and quarterly reporting periods. If you are an options trader, you can view recent options trade in the Options link. In the Holders section, you can view major individual and institutional stockholders, including mutual funds that own the stock. All of this information can be otherwise found on the company’s website, but you have to dig for it: First, find the company’s website, then find the Investor Relations section, then dig further. In Yahoo! Finance, all of this information is readily available without much digging. It is very handy.
Market News
Back to the Yahoo! Finance homepage, if you are looking for general market information rather than company-specific information, you have come to the right place. The homepage acts as a news amalgamator – it links to content from other news outlets. There are also Sponsored stories: these are stories that someone or some company has paid to place there, so take them with a grain of salt. It is a very handy way to keep on top of the general market news.
My Portfolio
If you have a list of individual stocks or ETF’s that you want to follow, you can keep track of them in one place through Yahoo! Finance, and thereby stay fully up-to-date (at least on a 20 minute delayed basis). Of course, you could do the same if you have a brokerage account and you use your broker’s platform, but Yahoo! Finance offers a free alternative.
IMO
The word I have used several times is handy. You can find most of everything you want to find out (superficially, anyhow) without working too hard by using Yahoo! Finance. It has been used for years as a resource for those looking into stocks, and it remains as such. There are other free charting sites out there, but their emphasis is on the charting, whereas Yahoo! Finance’s emphasis is on overall company research. For those of you who like to backtest and maneuver data, the Historical Data feature is especially useful. Check it out – why not? It’s free.