Yahoo finance Vs Google finance – Who really cares ?
Answer to the question “Yahoo finance Vs Google Finance – which one is better” can depend on who you ask. Before answering this question let us first understand who are the typical users of either Yahoo or Google finance services. These services are mostly used by casual investors. People like me who are not full time investors. Full time investors spend money on much better real time software tools to get information on what’s happening in the market day in day out. Investors like me need information without a hefty price tag for it. The comparison between Yahoo finance and Google finance here is therefore done with casual investors in mind.
Yahoo finance Vs Google finance : A head to head comparison
The following comparison covers topics most relevant to a casual investor.
What is happening in the market today (Latest Financial News)
In this Yahoo Finance vs Google finance comparison Yahoo wins here for clearly showing the latest market updates. They have top center widget dedicated to this. Google Finance’s page looks no different than their search result pages. Consider this, 90% of searches are done on Google and people are quite frankly not going to treat this page any different than bunch of search results. Google should consider a more relevant layout and news here.
Related investing advice
We need opinion on when the job market would pick up, whats the report on latest Apple gadgets (Iphone, Ipad etc). In this Yahoo finance Vs Google Finance comparison we see that Google is completely missing this content and leaves us with no expert advice. (If you let me call it that ! ) They instead have popular Google searches here. Shouldn’t that be right below the ad in a small 300X250 box ? I think people like to see rich content and not who is searching for what (let twitter do that !).
Future Events
It is always good to know when a company event such as earnings report is scheduled. Yahoo Finance does a good job here. You can see all earnings announcements schedule and set up alerts for those. In Google Finance I did not see that.
User engagement
This is of prime importance in WEB 2.0 world. People like to see what others are commenting about a stock. I would agree that most of the times it is useless chatter but then sometimes it does lead to good discussion. Here the Yahoo finance vs Google Finance comparison reveals that Google should give this a consideration and that Yahoo is clearly leader in this aspect.
Analyst Opinions
This is quite interesting parameter for all levels of investors. Yahoo Finance does a good job by having a separate section of this. Google Finance simple does not provide this.
Real Time Quotes
Yahoo finance now offers real time stock quotes. On each page one can notice the stock price changes in real time. This is an excellent feature for any investor. Google finance currently does not provide this.
Company Events
It is always good to know when a corporation is going to release its earnings. Yahoo finance provides a calender on earning dates for all major corporations. Google finance does not have this facility.
Summary
Based on these points of comparison between Yahoo finance vs Google Finance I think Google should in general concentrate on providing richer content. It should not try to treat this as another data mining project as not all investors are searching Google for relevant financial news. The financial big wigs, who we all like to follow for our investing insights, are searching else where.
