Favorite Apps to Track the Market
At least a couple times a month, I am asked by people of all ages and backgrounds, “What apps do you use to track the market?”
I know, I know – some of you are wondering ‘why in the world you would want to watch the market?’ while others are you are thinking ‘why wouldn’t you?’
For some they find it interesting or intriguing (I fall into this camp) while others find it brings about unnecessary stress. However, I have found that like many things education is key!
So here goes – these are my favorite apps you can download to check the market or track your favorite companies and why.
1) Stocks –the default app that comes on an Apple device. It’s great for someone getting started and is great if all you want to do is create a Watchlist of your favorite companies to check daily or weekly. This app does not have robust capabilities. You do have access to some of the top news articles daily and at the bottom a link to Yahoo! Finance.
2) Yahoo! Finance – To track specific stocks, just add them to a watch list to receive quotes and personalized news about the companies. Turn your smartphone into landscape mode to view full-screen charts. The charts provide more information about stocks and even allow you to compare different options. Past tracking the market, the app can even provide information on currencies, bonds, commodities, equities, and world markets. Yahoo! Finance is also my favorite tool to look up historical stock prices and data.
3) Marketwatch – my favorite app for all things Markets and Watchlist plus it is user friendly. There are 3 tabs within the app: Articles, Markets, and Watchlist. Under the Markets tab, you can get updates on the different indexes. With the Watchlist tab, you can create a free account and begin to create your own Watchlist of the companies you would like to follow. Finally, Marketwatch provides you with immediate access to recent financial articles.
4) Ticker Stock Portfolio Manager – This app provides a comprehensive way to keep track of the market and offers great features. This app is for you, if you want to track and your overall positions and profit/loss information at a glance — enter the trades, dividends, and splits and the app takes care of the other calculations. You’ll even have access to portfolio metrics for the last three years.
How to Know Where to Start?
- Identify your goals with tracking the markets or your stocks?
- Just creating a Watchlist to learn – use the default application on your smart phone!
- Wanting to track the overall markets on a daily, weekly and monthly basis plus track your companies who peaked your interest – Yahoo! Finance or Marketwatch
- Want to have access to recent news related to the markets and other financial topics – Marketwatch or Yahoo! Finance
- At a glance access to your personal holdings – Ticker Stock Portfolio Manager
- Remember we all have to start somewhere – Rome was not built overnight! Give yourself room for mistakes and room to learn…the tortoise wins the race.
- View this as an experiment! If you try one application for a little while and decide you don’t like it, don’t give up – try another one!
Stay tuned for my next email that will include more information on how to learn about the movements of stock prices. I would love to hear if you have used another and why you love it, so hit reply and let me know!
Let’s talk soon,
Maleah
