How to Use the Google Finance Search Tools

Stocks and the stock market is a fast-paced world to keep up with. In order to stay ahead of the game, you’ve got to be organized, aware of what’s going on, and have easy access to the latest financial news. The Internet has quickly become the number on means of getting and sharing information immediately. This is crucial for keeping up with finance. Furthermore, websites like Google.com have additional tools and resources to stay updated and informed about the financial market. Google Finance is a branch from Google.com that focuses solely on the financial information and news that is so vital to you.

To access Google Finance, click “more” at the top of the page on Google’s homepage, then click Finance. On the home page of Google Finance is five tools that will help you stay updated and organized. Here’s a brief description of how to use each of these tools:

*Markets*

This is a great way to get a quick overview of the current position of global markets. The top section, “Market Summary” shows articles from leading stock market analysts and is updated quite frequently. You will see a link to the original article, a summary, who provided the information, when it was posted (in minutes), and include a picture of any grafts or images were included in the article. This is a great way to see what the latest news is, and decide from there if you want to read the full story.

The next section in the “Markets” tool is the top news stories relating to the market. Under that is the “Sector Summary” showing the increase or decrease percentages for stock in certain sectors, like Basic Materials, Conglomerates, and Energy. The last section in “Markets” is a basis analysis of market trends, including for categories:

* Popular-showing the trends for the most popular, most researched corporations and businesses.
* Price-showing the top 5 stocks that are currently gaining and losing percentages.
* Mkt Cap-showing the top 5 gainers and losers with the highest market cap.
* Vol-showing the top 10 stocks with the highest volume.

*News*

Basically, this is a listing of all the news stories about the market. The news is listed in the order that they were posted with links to the original article, a summary, and the company that provided the information. To the right is a subsection of “Top Stories”, to see the most popular news stories.

*Portfolios*

You must have an account with Google to use this section. This is where you can organize your current stock investments. You can add ticker symbols of the stocks and mutual funds you are purchasing or watching, add transaction data, etc. You will then be able to track your progress and see recent activity in your stocks.

When you add a stock to your portfolio, either to watch or buy shares, you will then see a basic preview of the stocks, and have the option to see the overview, fundamentals, performance, and transactions (shown is separate tabs) for each stock.

*Stock Screener*

This tool will help you get information on current stock. You can search for stocks based on their market cap, P/E ratio, Dividend yield, and 52w price change, or a combination of all or some of these criteria. You will then be shown a list of matching stocks in alphabetical order below. Each stock is a link to a page summarizing this stock’s detailed information, like shares and recent activity, etc. From here you can click to watch the stock, which automatically adds it to your portfolio. Under the basic summary is a listing of related companies that you might also be interested in, including their current status.

*Google Domestic Trends*

This tool will show you trends of searches performed on Google by US users, compared to the actual sales in that area. Since the majority of Internet users use search engines to gain information, and Google is the number one (by far) search engine used, this could be a valuable resource. You can compare the rise and fall of searches performed on Google to actual purchases to see a different prospective on the popularity of certain markets. There are several market sector categories to choose from, like computers and electronics, durable goods, and real estate.

For all your finance and stock market needs, check out Google Finance!

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