If you use Google Finance, now might be the time to...

[jobyts]

The most useful feature for me from google finance was the overall portfolio graph. With google finance, I could create a portfolio, compare the portfolio performance with the index.

Google finance provided only one year comparison, but they allowed that one year to slide to previous years.

 

Does any web site (prefer free, but I'm ready to pay a reasonable fee) provide a portfolio graph comparison and slide option to compare older x-years window?

[Dynamic]

The most useful feature for me from google finance was the overall portfolio graph. With google finance, I could create a portfolio, compare the portfolio performance with the index.

Google finance provided only one year comparison, but they allowed that one year to slide to previous years.

 

Does any web site (prefer free, but I'm ready to pay a reasonable fee) provide a portfolio graph comparison and slide option to compare older x-years window?

 

Did that feature track changes in your portfolio over time?

 

I read a bit about the portfolio import and export recently on the Google Finance help pages and it sounded as though they recorded buys and sells, both long and short properly and they described the calculations made for each position, and allowed import and export of the portfolio ledger from various brokers via .CSV data files. I seem to recall it also allowed you to set your own native currency, so it seemed as thought it was quite capable. It's possible that the reworked system will also be able to work from these ledgers, but we'll just have to wait and see whether it's an improvement capable of even more or something less useful but cheaper to maintain.

 

I do a lot of this sort of tracking in Google Sheets, but I tend to hard-code snapshots in time (e.g. annually in a table) for my portfolio and individual holdings and the total return index values, rather than importing historical data and charting it. I do use my own 365-day portfolio ledger from my broker's site, from which I can just paste new transactions into Google Sheets (Paste Values = Ctrl+Shift+V) and add a ticker column to identify the dividends with the stock.

 

Historical prices are also supported by the GOOGLEFINANCE() function in Google Sheets and I've used it recently for some data that is only a few months old, but I also noticed it doesn't work for all stocks (JNJ failed for a while in my tests, but is now working again, while NASDAQ:LILA never seems to work). I'm not aware of it being able to report dividends paid historically either, except for the most recent dividend (and likewise the most recent capital distribution), so that's where having portfolio ledgers can help.

 

I guess there's some scope to chart this data in Google Sheets as you can use it to return daily data over a long period.

 

What doesn't seem to work historically on GOOGLEFINANCE() is currencies, which is relevant to me, investing mostly in USD but with all buys and sells via GBP.

 

I tend to use Yahoo Finance Charts (which can be scrolled and hovered over to reveal historical prices of stocks, currencies and indexes) to take snapshots on a few relevant dates in the past when I had not recorded the information. This lets me track my outperformance (or underperformance) relative to the index of choice, by adding and subtracting the same cash flows to the index. I also have a few online resources - some updated annually or even less frequently which help me track other total return index values (FTSE100TRI, FTAS-TRI) historically, some of which aren't on GoogleFinance or YahooFinance.

 

I believe Yahoo Finance's ASP does allow some spreadsheet integration, so perhaps I can automate more historical lookup in future.

 

For now, this suffices to track performance in appropriate currency versus my chosen 3 Total Return Index competitors (S&P500TR, FTSE100TRI and FTAS-TRI) and to calculate my IRR for various positions against the equivalent index investments.

[jobyts]

 

Did that feature track changes in your portfolio over time?

 

 

No. This feature is good only for back testing of a portfolio you come up with some criteria. I could track how many percentage of times my theoretical portfolio lagging/leading the index.

[Dynamic]

I think some parts of the way Google Finance works may be undergoing recoding behind the scenes at present.

 

Some of the GOOGLEFINANCE function in Google Sheets isn't behaving as it used to (and I've reported the regression). For example, GOOGLEFINANCE("CURRENCY:USDUSD") should return 1 always, and "CURRENCY:GBXGBP" should return 0.01 always but both return N/A error code.

 

This can be worked around but makes for simpler more consistent Google Sheets formulae to convert whatever currency a stock trades in into a target currency of choice which could be the same currency like USDUSD = 1 or like converting GBX penny to GBP pound = 0.01. I use it in my own portfolio tracker and my Look Through Berkshire tracker, so if they don't fix it, I'll have to use a workaround using IF() or hard-coding rates.

[frommi]

I had the same problems, had to rework all my spreadsheets today. USDUSD doesn`t work anymore and some tickers now need the correct stock exchange prefixed. Until today you could get data with FFH.TO, now you have to use TSE:FFH. And they changed the layout on the GoogleFinance site, so for all tickers that are not available directly with the GoogleFinance API i pulled the data from google.com/finance, that also doesn`t work as before. I now use quote.wsj.com to import japanese and singapor stock prices, but the loading takes forever, i would love to see a better idea to get japanese and singapor stock prices into a spreadsheet.

[Dynamic]

I had tried some Japanese prices before on my watchlist, but they never seemed to be supported on the old GOOGLEFINANCE function. Perhaps they're aiming to include more markets in future.

[frommi]

That would be nice, but i doubt it. =GoogleFinance("UPRO") also doesn`t work anymore, any ideas?

[jimjam]

NB: The following message is superseded by the instructions here:

 

https://github.com/jimjamfinance/yahoo_finance_ublock_origin_filters

 

=============

 

FWIW, yahoo finance is not too bad to use when all the crap is stripped away. Enclosed below is a rather brutal set of ublock origin filters I wrote that get rid of almost every junk pixel on the screen. The experience in google chrome with these filters is rather pleasant now...

 

! yahoo finance brutal simplifications

! general yahoo navigation
finance.yahoo.com##div[id="masterNav"]

! yahoo properties navigation
finance.yahoo.com##ul[class*="Bgc(#2d1152)"]

! navigation junk
finance.yahoo.com##li:has(a:has-text(Personal Finance))
finance.yahoo.com##li:has(a:has-text(Originals))
finance.yahoo.com##li:has(a:has-text(Technology))

! navigation color junk
finance.yahoo.com##div[id="YDC-UH"]:style(background-image: none !important)
finance.yahoo.com##div[id="YDC-Nav"] > div:style(background-image: none !important)

! yahoo mail icon in upper right
finance.yahoo.com##a[title="Mail"]
finance.yahoo.com##a[id="uh-mail"]

! lightbulb in upper right
finance.yahoo.com##div[class*="uv-top-right"]

! "Subscribe to Yahoo Finance's Morning Brief"
finance.yahoo.com##div[id*="FeatureBar"]

! video news
finance.yahoo.com##li[class*="js-stream-content"]

! yahoo text ads
finance.yahoo.com##div[id*="LinkOut-Proxy"]

! other companies
finance.yahoo.com##div[id="YDC-Col2"]

! popup videos
finance.yahoo.com##div[id*="QuoteVideo"]

! side news 
finance.yahoo.com##aside

! slider news
finance.yahoo.com##div[class*="slick-slider"]

! "sponsor" in news
finance.yahoo.com##li:has(p:has(a[data-ylk*="sponsor"]))

! Link Broker 
finance.yahoo.com##li:has(button[data-test="linkPf"])

! Footer 
finance.yahoo.com##div[id="mrt-node-Lead-4-Footer"]

[Dynamic]

You mean ("UPRO", "price")?

 

What I usually do is click a link for a known share such as BRK.B then type UPRO in the Search Box at the top. It suggests two different things and includes in capital letters the correct ticker for each (including exchange where necessary).

 

For UPRO these are:

NYSEARCA: UPRO

MCX: UPRO

[LC]

FWIW, yahoo finance is not too bad to use when all the crap is stripped away. Enclosed below is a rather brutal set of ublock origin filters I wrote that get rid of almost every junk pixel on the screen. The experience in google chrome with these filters is rather pleasant now...

 

 

Thank you!

[frommi]

You mean ("UPRO", "price")?

 

What I usually do is click a link for a known share such as BRK.B then type UPRO in the Search Box at the top. It suggests two different things and includes in capital letters the correct ticker for each (including exchange where necessary).

 

For UPRO these are:

NYSEARCA: UPRO

MCX: UPRO

 

To get prices you can leave out "price". But i tested both versions and none works. MCX:UPRO is something else and NYSEARCA:UPRO doesn`t work. Maybe it is something with Proshares ETF`s that doesn`t work anymore? I also can`t get prices for the ETF "NOBL".

[frommi]

 

To get prices you can leave out "price". But i tested both versions and none works. MCX:UPRO is something else and NYSEARCA:UPRO doesn`t work. Maybe it is something with Proshares ETF`s that doesn`t work anymore? I also can`t get prices for the ETF "NOBL".

 

Looks like it was fixed last night.

[Dynamic]

The "CURRENCY:USDUSD" and "CURRENCY:GBXGBP" is also working again. Thanks Google!

[StubbleJumper]

I was having trouble with Canadian security prices.  For many years to get the Toronto price for the Royal Bank you could use the symbol RY.to.  Suddenly yesterday the only thing that seemed to work was tse:RY.

 

It's a little frustrating when Google randomly makes adjustments like that. I guess you can't really bellyache too much about something that is free.

[KCLarkin]

I've been using Yahoo Finance and it is actually quite good. Not sure why it has such a bad reputation. It's going to be a long time before it replaces Google Finance in my workflow but a few things I like:

- Portfolio view has a neat indicator showing where stock is trading relative to 52 week high/low

- Customizable portfolio views (can add things like 200 dma, %change from 52 week high

- "Statistics" shows much more than Google Finance ever did

- Great iphone and ipad apps and good website

 

It will take a while to customize and get used to Yahoo Finance but I think it is vastly superior to old Google Finance.

 

Caveat: My memories of Google Finance are fading so I am probably forgetting all the great things about it.

Edit: Just took a look at Morningstar. It has Total Return YTD which is pretty cool. One problem with most free finance sites is that they only provide price returns (ignoring dividends).

[Sharad]

I look at the actions of Google and Seeking Alpha, and I slot them into the contrarian indicator that the market has reached a top.

 

Google is now trying to create a webpage that reaches the mass of people that have flooded the market in the last 6 months or so. Seeking Alpha is seeking to prey on the retail investors that are looking for as much information in a forum full of comment boxes.

 

People love to take advice from other anonymous people; it's time to build more short positions for the inevitable failure of the 200 day MA, and the fall to the 200 week MA (you see what I did there?).

[Cigarbutt]

In the spirit of asking skeptical questions, I'm fairly new to investment forums.

 

For many of these online meeting places (not here), politely said, the level of sophistication is variable.

 

Is this just anecdotal or are there any ways to measure this (number of sites, number of participants etc) such as what has been attempted before with the number of active investment clubs as a measure of sentiment?

 

Probably soft evidence but I wonder if the ratio of subscriptions to investment forums over the Interest Rate Observer would be a reliable indicator of investor confidence.

 

[Liberty]

I look at the actions of Google and Seeking Alpha, and I slot them into the contrarian indicator that the market has reached a top.

 

Google is now trying to create a webpage that reaches the mass of people that have flooded the market in the last 6 months or so. Seeking Alpha is seeking to prey on the retail investors that are looking for as much information in a forum full of comment boxes.

 

People love to take advice from other anonymous people; it's time to build more short positions for the inevitable failure of the 200 day MA, and the fall to the 200 week MA (you see what I did there?).

 

I think you're over-thinking it.

 

Google had basically already abandoned Google Finance years ago. It just kept running on inertia, but after a while, technical debt catches up with you... The charting engine was build on Flash, which is being pretty much deprecated all over the web and wasn't going to be tenable much longer. They decided to build a new minimal version inside the search so it's additive to the core product (even if everyone agrees the new version sucks) rather than being something on the side to keep maintaining (even if millions relied on it and it did the job).

 

As for SeekingAlpha, seems like they're just trying to squeeze more out of the model, but there's a danger of killing the goose if they squeeze too hard, which is why they're still keeping the paywall not 100% airtight.

[undervalued]

Liberty, you're famous. The new Google Finance IS useless. https://www.marketbeat.com/press-room/google-finance-changes-and-alternatives/

[Liberty]

Ha! I just hope Google gets the feedback from its users... I've gotten in touch with the project leader through a friend at Google and sent feedback through the forms, but that's a bit like spitting into a volcano. Not sure it does much... But I prefer doing something to doing nothing.

[sleepydragon]

I have switched to yahoo finance and later Morningstar.

I like Morningstar a lot, let me create views and see various ratios in one table.

The news are also better.

[Liberty]

I have switched to yahoo finance and later Morningstar.

I like Morningstar a lot, let me create views and see various ratios in one table.

The news are also better.

 

One thing that I miss from all the alternative sites is speed. Morningstar is quite slow... Slowest is probably Gurufocus. Even Yahoo finance is pretty slow.

 

RocketFinancial.com is probably the fastest one.

[thowed]

Agreed on Morningstar slowness.

 

But it's basically my only choice, as I need international stuff, and Rocket seems to be North America only.

 

On the other hand, I'm trying to be glass-half-full, and think that I am spending less time looking at prices, which on balance is probably a good thing.

[Liberty]

Agreed on Morningstar slowness.

 

But it's basically my only choice, as I need international stuff, and Rocket seems to be North America only.

 

On the other hand, I'm trying to be glass-half-full, and think that I am spending less time looking at prices, which on balance is probably a good thing.

 

Yeah, I've been telling myself the same thing... but I also know that I've discovered so many companies by just clicking around on Google Finance and that some of these serendipitous finds turned out to be valuable.

 

Or another way to look at it: Maybe using it was bad for me, but I'd have wanted the option to stop by myself, or to have it for those rare times when I need it, rather than have the whole thing yanked away by Google for no good reason...

[Liberty]

Twitter is pulling a Google move with its third party clients (used mostly by power users).

 

Check this out:

 

http://apps-of-a-feather.com/

 

If this bothers you, please take the time to tweet @TwitterDev to let them know.