There is no shortage of places onlinethat provide current stock quotes. Using any type of Internet-connected devicewill let youenter a ticker symbol to get the latestquote on a traded security from a website or app. Traditionally, historical quotes on stocks and indexes were harder to come by for the general public, butthis is no longer the case.
Historical price data can be used by investors and analysts to back-test pricing models or investment strategies, to mine data for patterns that have occurred in the past, or to detect technical indicators for day traders, among other uses.
Key Takeaways
- Stock price quotes were once hard to find for ordinary investors, and real-time data came with a hefty price tag.
- Today, however, several online services provide free real-time quotes for public consumption.
- Both historical and up-to-the-minute price quotes can be found using an Internet-connected device and one of several websites or apps.
- Investopedia has its own handy tools for obtaining historical price quotes as well.
Getting Historical Quotes on Securities
If you're looking for a historical range of data on an individual security then you can use Investopedia'sMarketssection to find what you need.
In order to navigate to the historical data, enter the ticker symbol of the equity you're looking for into the "Search Company or Symbol" search box on the page. This will take you to the quote page of the ticker symbol you entered.
Once on the quote page of the stock or ETF that you're interested in you can use the time interval controls in the top left of the chart to adjust the time interval that the chart displays (for example hour, day, month) so that you can see the historical timeframe you are interested in.
This tool lets you enter a date range as well as daily, weekly, or monthly closing prices.In addition to pricing data, you can also look at historical dividends and stock splits.
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Getting Historical Quotes on Indices
If you're just looking for the three major U.S. indices, then the chart on our Markets Today page features historical pricing for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq.
You can adjust the dates along the top of the graph to see the historical data of the three indices.If you're looking for a more robust set of historical pricing data, the CaltechQuantitative Finance Group does a great job of providing a landscape of the available market data feed options.
Where Else to Find Historical Quotes
There are several other resources online to find historical price quotes. Online brokerage sites such as eTrade and TD Ameritrade or apps like Robinhood will have both real-time and historical quote data for customers and usually limited access for non-customers as well. Financial websites like Motley Fool or Google Finance will also provide quote information for both stocks and indices.
For a history of index price returns dating back to the year 1928, you can check out this table maintained by New York University's Stern Business School.
