- MSN Money is handy for looking up prices of stocks and market indexes because it’s fast and gives you everything you need, ranging from the stock’s closing price to how much trading activity there was when dividends (cash payments) were paid to investors. One nifty trick of MSN Money is that it has a companion app for Windows 10, iOS, and Android that remembers which stocks you’re most interested in. You can create this list by clicking the My Watchlist tab on the website or on the Watchlist menu in the app.
- Yahoo! Finance lets you download historical data, a feature that’s getting surprisingly scarce in non-professional tools. Enter a stock symbol and click the Look Up button. Then, in the left column, click the Historical Prices link. You’ll see a page with a table of dates and the stock’s prices on those dates. In the Set Date Range area near the top, you can pick a range of dates you’d like stock prices for. Below the table (scroll down a bit) is a link to Download to Spreadsheet. Yahoo! Finance also offers an app for several smartphones, making it a convenient choice.
- Google Finance does a solid job of summarizing in one page many of the basics you need to know about a stock. You’ll find not only the stock price but also a list of competitors, a summary of how Wall Street experts feel about the stock, and basic financial information. Google Finance also offers free real-time stock prices.
- FreeStockCharts.com gives you great flexibility in creating stock charts, allowing you to add all sorts of different indicators that show you how a stock is doing. And unlike most other stock sites, FreeStockCharts lets you download the end-of-year values of investments. End-of-year data is helpful when you want to see how an investment has performed over the long haul.
