Google Hacks 2Nd Edition [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Hack 8. Track Stocks

A well-crafted Google query will usually net
you company information beyond those provided by traditional stock
services .

Among the pantheon of lesser-known

Google syntaxes is
stocks:. Searching for
stocks:symbol, where
symbol represents the stock
you're looking for, will redirect you to
Yahoo! Finance (http://finance.yahoo.com/) for details. The
Yahoo! page is actually framed by Google; off to the top-left is the
Google logo, along with links to Quicken, Fool.com, MSN MoneyCentral,
and other financial sites.

Feed Google a bum stock: query and
you'll still find yourself at Yahoo! Finance,
usually staring at a quote for stock that you've
never heard of or a "Stock Not
Found" page. Of course, you can use this to your
advantage. Enter stocks: followed by the name of a
company you're looking for (e.g.,
stocks:friendly). If the
company's name is more than one word, choose the
most unique word. Run your query and you'll arrive
at the Yahoo! Finance stock lookup page shown in Figure 1-22.

Notice the Look Up button; click it and you'll be
offered a list of companies that match
"friendly" in some way. From there
you can get the stock information that you want (assuming the company
you wanted is on the list).

1.20.1. Beyond Google for Basic Stock Information

Google isn't particularly set up for basic stock
research. You'll have to do your initial groundwork
elsewhere, returning to Google armed with a better understanding of
what you're looking for. I recommend going straight
to Yahoo! Finance (http://finance.yahoo.com) to quickly look up
stocks by symbol or company name. There you'll find
all the basics: quotes, company profiles, charts, and recent news.
For more in-depth coverage, I heartily recommend

Hoovers (http://www.hoovers.com). Some of the
information is free. For more depth, you'll have to
pay a subscription fee.

1.20.2. More Stock Research with Google

Try searching Google for:

"Tootsie Roll" Now add the stock symbol, TR, to your query:

"Tootsie Roll" TR Aha! Instantly the search results shift to financial information.
Now, add the name of the CEO:

"Tootsie Roll" TR "Melvin Gordon" You'll end up with a nice, small, targeted list of
results, as shown in Figure 1-23.

Stock symbols are great
"fingerprints" for Internet
research. They're consistent, they often appear
along with the company name, and they're usually
enough to narrow down your search results to relevant information.

There are also several words and phrases that you can use to narrow
down your search for company-related information. Replacing
company with the name of the company
you're looking for, try these:

For press releases:
"company
announced",
"company
announces",
"company
reported" For financial information: company
"quarterly report",
company SEC,
company financials,
company "p/e ratio" For location information: company
parking airport
locationdoesn't always
work but sometimes works amazingly well