As any savvy investor knows, getting the right stock information gives you the knowledge you need to make sound investment decisions. Unlike earlier times when investors had to rely on limited stock quotes published in daily newspapers or broadcast on radio or television, today the Internet is full of real-time stock information. In some cases, quotes are delayed for a period not exceeding 30 minutes, during which time analysts summarize and publish accurate information about the stock. On different sites, one can easily find out what mutual funds, bonds, indices, stocks, and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) are traded for. In addition to stock quotes, earnings reports, financial reports, interest briefs, analyst coverage, and SEC filings on specific companies can be accessed from the web. Knowing the company’s history helps an investor decide if the stock is strong enough to justify their investment.
Most stock quotes are freely available, and all one has to do is identify the most informative site to use. To make the user experience even more rewarding, some of the sites that quote the trading prices of specific stocks allow the user to download the information into computer applications such as OpenOffice and Microsoft Excel, among others. Should one thing a site like Yahoo! Finance or MSN Money, you can browse price quotes for a specific company by typing the company name in a text box provided. In cases where an investor wants to compare the stock prices of different companies, he can type the names (or acronyms) of the companies he is interested in and click on the search icon.
For investors who are curious about where websites like Yahoo! Finance, MSN money or DailyFinance.com obtain their information, it should be noted that the websites are based on more than 3,000 sources of information. Some of the sources transmit similar information to websites and therefore it is the website administrator’s job to compare the information and verify that only the most accurate information is published on the website. Investors’ evaluation of stock prices is enhanced by interactive charts posted on various financial websites on the Internet. Company events, such as financial earnings and dividends paid to shareholders, can also be used as a viable indicator of the company’s financial performance and thus the level of risk associated with its actions.
On different financial websites, real-time stock quotes are available on stock exchanges such as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the American Stock Exchange (AMEX), and NASDAQ. To access quotes from other countries, you may need to search for the specific stock exchanges where the stock is listed. With the internet making the world a global village, investors interested in monitoring stocks can access stock quotes similar to how they access national company quotes. This has made doing business for the supervisory investor not only fast, but also effective.