Where Global means Global
Written: Jun 21 '00
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Pros: Great Free Information and Portfolio Tracking Tools
Cons: None to speak of
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| ErgoPropterHoc's Full Review: Yahoo Finance |
When you need to track your investments online, there are few better tools to use than Yahoo! Finance. This free service provided by a name you already know is amongst the best available on the 'net at any price. It's easy to find, simple to navigate, and quick to load.
No Flashy Graphics
The Yahoo! Finance site is as simple as can be. You get a simple table when you log on, which describes the performance of your investments. There's no clutter of button bars or slick packaging to slow down the page load times. While the scrolling personalised stock tickers on other sites might look exciting at first, you'll soon come to realise that it just bogs down the download times, as it's usually not updated in real time.
No Pesky Logins
When I want to see how my portfolio is doing, I don't like to be bothered with having to log in to a web site with my username and password. Of course, privacy is important, and security of my money is paramount, but convenience is also nice. Yahoo! Finance allows me to track my entire portfolio (held in a variety of different accounts) all in one place. The portfolio report can be bookmarked, so I can jump directly to my report from anywhere on the 'net. Since Yahoo! doesn't actually connect to any of my accounts, no one can access my money here, even if they do manage to crack into my Yahoo! account. Yet my privacy is relatively safe: my portfolio can only be accessed from my computer, or with my password.
Completely Customizable Reports
Yahoo! Finance provides you with four pre-arranged report formats to analyse your portfolios, and offers you the opportunity to customise new reports to include the information you want to track. You can provide them with as little or as much information about your holdings as you like. If you're skittish about your financial privacy, you can just include some stock symbols for Yahoo! to track-or, if you've got trade confirmations handy, you can input trade dates, purchase prices, and even commissions, and have Yahoo! Calculate gains, losses, and annualised average returns on your investment. The portfolio manager also has the option of adding automatic price alerts on some stocks, so you'll get a note in your e-mail in box when it's time to buy or sell.
Global means Global
Many of the so-called "global" money management tools on the web are lacking in their international support. Most of these "global" sites list the daily performance of the Nikkei or the CAC-40, or provide analysis of how the latest economic news in China or Britain will affect markets in the United States. But unlike all these "global" sites, Yahoo! Finance can actually provide me with stock quotes on the companies I own on overseas markets. It's very convenient for me to have my holdings on the Canadian markets listed right alongside the rest of my portfolio, with regularly updated quotes and charts, and prices listed in either Canadian or American funds. (Or both-I have the quotes in Canadian dollars, but holdings values calculated in U.S. dollars.)
Valuable Tools and Information
Free for your perusal at Yahoo! Finance are detailed reports on most U.S. stocks and mutual funds, and many overseas companies as well. Earnings estimates and Consensus Recommendations from Zacks can be found under the Research links for most companies, along with corporate profiles from Marketguide. Yahoo! isn't resting on its laurels, though-recent improvements in the charting system now allow you to plot comparison charts against indices or other securities, as well as moving averages. These tools may not be as sophisticated as the MACD trendlines and stochastics provided at some other sites, but anyone who can claim to use stochastic data well is either deluding themselves, or using tools far in excess of what is available for free on the Internet.
Simply stated, Yahoo! Finance is the best free money-management tool available. Why would anyone settle for less?
Recommended:
Yes
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ErgoPropterHoc
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Location: Evanston, IL
Reviews written: 71
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