Google Finance has been a very popular service for many years since its initial release in 2006. In many ways, it has helped with the process of technology transforming stockbroking.
Then, in 2018, Google renovated the website, eliminating one of its most important features. This news was met with drastic public outcry from old users who felt like they lost a useful tool.
Many noted that it was very difficult to move on from Google Finance as it took them a long time to get used to any new format of tracking stocks. Nowadays, Google Finance functions as part of the Google search page while retaining most of its old features.
Google Finance was one of Google’s most popular services for a long time.
Overview
The Google Finance page provides you with a hefty overview of major topics related to the world of finance. You can follow different stocks, read the latest business news and stay up to date on the world’s major markets and currencies.
Even with the portfolio feature at its peak, Google Finance wasn’t exactly the definitive research tool for serious investors and stockbrokers. That said, it was still highly useful for getting a quick overview of your portfolio.
Its major advantage was that it was easy to use and provided a lot of information. As such, it represented a great business tool for new or casual investors. It introduced them to the world of finance by providing a fairly intuitive interface that brimmed with information.
The eliminated feature
In 2017, Google announced making some changes to its Finance service. This renovation saw Google dial back many of its websites’ useful features.
The elimination of the Google Finance Portfolio feature was a major development. The news was met with some blowback from users.
The Portfolio feature allowed users to keep track of their chosen stock in a handy list. It even allowed people to compare individual stocks against a market index. It also included the news of any upcoming events as well as earnings dates.
You could count on the portfolios to give you a complete overview of your own stocks, as well as basically every other stock in all of the world’s markets. You could search the markets easily for specific stocks using a particular criterion.
The individual pages for companies contained so much information and would keep the investors fully informed. However, after Google had done away with this useful feature, investors had to turn to other places to get the necessary information.
There are many different options that would be worth trying out if this is what you’re missing.
There are many services that allow stock portfolio tracking. Some users would even venture to say that they are even superior to the old Google Finance.
These trackers will let you stay up to date on stock prices and corporate actions. They also provide investors with easily readable charts and graphs.
Finding the right one can be of great help when building your own stock portfolio. While doing something like relocating your vehicle can be simple, not everything will be that easy.
It is much harder to find a personal finance service that will provide you with all of the necessary information and at the same time be easy to use. Leaning on Google Finance in the meantime is still a valid choice.
It is much harder to find a good portfolio tracker since Google eliminated this feature.
Google Finance today
Though people still lament the axing of the portfolio feature, Google Finance of present-day is still a useful business tool.
Instead of building your portfolio, you can simply follow any stocks you might be interested in. You can have them all collected on a watch list in the Your Stocks tab. You can still keep up to date with both world and local markets, as well as follow the relevant business news.
How to use Google Finance
In order to use Google Finance, you will need a Google account. If you have been living under a rock and still haven’t switched to Gmail, you will find that it is rather user-friendly and can be done in the blink of an eye.
Bear in mind though, that the information they give you is not exactly presented in real-time. This will be true in some cases, but in others, there will be a delay of some 10, 15 and even 20 minutes in the data that the service presents.
How to follow stocks
Once you’ve logged in, you can start building your watch list. You do this by clicking on the stocks you’re interested in and then clicking the blue Follow button. The stocks will then appear in the Your Stocks tab of the website.
You can repeat this with as many entries as you want. Once you wish to unfollow stocks, all it takes is clicking the blue Following button again. The service is very user-friendly and instinctive, much like most other Google products.
How to compare stocks
Just because the comparisons aren’t available as part of the portfolio, doesn’t mean they aren’t available, period.
By clicking on any individual stocks, the service provides you with a general overview, news related to the stock as well as a tab titled Compare. When you click on this tab, you can compare said stock with any other stock.
Charts are a very useful feature of Google Finance.
Charts
Charts on Google Finance are a great tool for analyzing stocks. They are more refined than charts on most other services. You can see the price and volume of a stock at any given time by moving your cursor over the chart.
Furthermore, you can also easily compare two or more charts with just a couple of clicks. You can even select a particular timeframe of your own volition and see the numbers pertaining to it.
