Buzz
Alicia Adamczyk, the finance expert at Mytour, would advise against the daily stock-checking habit—and that’s sound advice—but resisting the temptation to peek at the stock market every day can be tough. You don’t have to act on the information; sometimes, it’s just interesting to watch the market react dramatically after someone says or does something, sending the entire market plummeting by 1,000 points.
It’s also amusing when the market rises by 1,000 points for no obvious reason.
It's been over a year since Google reduced the functionality of its incredibly useful, free stock tracking tool—something I once recommended to casual and budding investors who wanted a clearer understanding of the market’s daily movements.
Fortunately, there are many solid alternatives to get your daily fix of financial frustration (or joy). Here’s a quick roundup of a few of my top picks—along with a reminder that Google Finance isn’t entirely gone, just changed.
Google Finance is still up and running, surprisingly enough.
Like many, I thought Google Finance was done for when it made major changes to its free service in late 2017. I quickly began searching for alternatives to get my financial updates, but perhaps I gave up on it too soon. If you're looking for the most basic portfolio info, Google Finance is still a functional option. It's much more stripped-down now, for better or worse.
The homepage of Google Finance offers a compact box showing just a few stocks from your watchlist, not the full list—because that would be too practical. There's also a section that displays stocks you've recently searched for, another for stocks you might be interested in (though don't count on it), and a quick snapshot of major global indices, including currencies.
You can easily add stocks to your watchlist, and access the full list under the 'Your Stocks' tab. Clicking on a stock shows its familiar price chart, and you can compare its performance with any other stock. While you don't get a detailed financial overview (like dividend yield or market cap), you can still quickly view the latest quarterly results.
I wouldn't recommend using Google Finance for day trading—especially after it discontinued a separate tool for filtering companies by market cap, P/E ratio, and more. Still, Google Finance isn't too bad if you need a quick glance at your portfolio every now and then (though you might drive yourself nuts doing so).
Yahoo Finance is a solid alternative to Google for financial tracking.
Although I’m not particularly fond of Yahoo—apologies to fantasy football fans—the company’s free stock-tracking service has quickly become a part of my daily routine. That said, Yahoo’s Finance site tends to lead with news stories rather than stock data.
I like how you can customize your stock watchlist, and Yahoo provides a wide array of categories to explore when you're looking for new stocks—whether you're interested in traditional companies, cryptocurrencies, trending stocks, commodities, ETFs, and more.
To start building your portfolio, you’ll need to sign in with a Yahoo account, which might even motivate you to reactivate it (unless you're secretly fond of Yahoo Mail). You can also link your Yahoo account to external brokers, making it convenient if you’ve already set up a portfolio with companies like Fidelity, Coinbase, or Robinhood.
Additionally, I find it useful that Yahoo Finance provides ample information on each individual stock or company. Clicking on a stock will give you a comprehensive view with all the essential details.
You can also compare stocks using a massive chart, check out user posts about the stock (yikes), and access a wealth of company statistics like P/E, outstanding shares, operating margins, 10-Q data, as well as dividend yields and payouts. Additionally, you can see historical highs and lows, analysts' predictions, and institutional holders. That’s a lot for a free service; here’s hoping it brings you wealth.
Alternatives: Investing.com, MarketWatch
TradingView is like the advanced mode for stock analysis.
Now things are getting interesting. I like that TradingView prioritizes numbers over news, which becomes obvious the first time you load the page and see a huge, real-time stock tracker at the top. And that’s just the beginning of the experience.
Pick a stock. Any stock. Type it into the convenient search bar, and you’ll immediately be presented with a huge, detailed chart and valuable data points—such as the daily range, volume, EPS, P/E, market cap, and dividend yield—right above the graph.
It gets even better. Click the 'full featured chart' button, and you’ll transform your screen into a massive trading terminal—well, at least in terms of look and feel:
I won’t dive deep into the basics, as TradingView lets you do everything: create watchlists, compare stocks, quickly explore various markets, and discover new stocks based on technical criteria. A standard account is free to set up, allowing you to save and track your portfolio (plus set up one stock alert and other features). For more advanced features, you’ll need to pay at least $10 a month.
Stockrow is fantastic for DIY charting, but it comes with a price.
I want to highlight Stockrow because I appreciate the site's minimalist design. It avoids flashy distractions, offering simple text and links to related corporate news, presented in quick headlines with short summaries—even though the sentences may seem a little jumbled at times.
I wouldn’t use Stockrow to track my portfolio, as you need to sign up for an account (which is currently closed when I wrote this). Additionally, Stockrow charges $14 a month for a membership, granting you features like portfolio tracking and real-time stock prices.
For those who want occasional insight into stocks, the site’s charting tools are quite useful. By selecting the 'Chart' link from the homepage, you’ll be directed to a tool that allows you to customize the chart before it’s created. You can choose multiple companies to track simultaneously and pick specific indicators—such as stock price, P/E ratio, dividends per share, and debt-to-equity ratio—that the chart should emphasize. If you’re up for it, you can even add multiple indicators to create a more complex (and potentially cluttered) chart.
For those who prefer to keep things simple by examining a single company at a time, the site’s charting tools are straightforward and easy to grasp. Hovering over different data points will show you quick explanations of what they represent (helping you avoid having to look things up if you’re still getting a grip on financial terms). Additionally, the handy 'Snapshots' feature provides an abundance of vital information about a company’s income, balance sheets, and cash flow all in one place, organized into charts you’d otherwise have to generate yourself on other websites.
Alternatives: Gurufocus, if you prefer visual bar charts that display how a company’s financial indicators compare to both its industry and its own historical performance.
