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I'm a huge fan of the Google ecosystem. And it shows as I carry around an Android phone, using Gmail as my primary personal email, and heavily depend on Google Maps for where I'm headed. It's no surprise I use Google Finance to track the daily ups and downs of my favorite stocks. And like everything else that's good about an ecosystem, I like that anything I set from my PC browser will automatically sync with the Google Finance Android App. So it comes as a bit of a surprise when for the last several years, there have been no updates to the Google Finance Android app. It's as if Google completely forgot about its existence. So it's a surprise when I ended up with a Yahoo Finance app.
As it turns out, the Google Finance app is no longer available through the Google Play. It was removed. So if you had the installation before it was removed, you get to continue using it. If you got a new Android phone, you won't find it at Google Play. Instead, you can search Google for the term "Google Finance APK" and find it from a variety of sources. You will have to allow app installations from other sites, which does pose a small security risk.
And so began the search for a better app for tracking the daily movement of the stock market. I was looking for a very simple app. The app should have the following requirements:
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Allow adding stocks to a favorite list so I don't have to type them in all the time.
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Ability to easily check the price of my favorite stocks by opening the app.
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Have the basic information like Market Cap, Daily High/Daily Low, P/E, charts, etc for when I search for new stocks.
What the new Finance Android app doesn't need is:
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The ability to track purchase and sell prices. In my experience, it takes too much effort and isn't worth tracking. Stock brokers are doing a better job at providing that information at their website.
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Don't need the ability to link to a broker. This is theft of my account waiting to happen.
It would be nice to have, but these wouldn't be deal breakers:
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Having a widget would be an added bonus
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Having news articles that don't have paywalls (this is still a major problem with Google Finance, even on the website version).
I downloaded and tried a handful of apps, but what it came down to was the simplicity behind Yahoo Finance. My first email address was with Yahoo, but when all their services weren't keeping up with the times, I made the jump to the cleaner interface of Google (and in that same jump, the rest of Google's services).
What I like about Yahoo Finance are the huge fonts. This turned out to be a hidden gem:
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It makes it far easier for me to look up quick information of my favorite stock while walking my dog Waffles in the morning. Leash in one hand, Android with Yahoo Finance fired up on the other.
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The charts are easy to use, thought they aren't very flexible. But neither was the Google's Finance app. The charts are limited to pre-set timeframes like 1 day, 5 day, 3 month, etc.
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News is easy to find, read, and links to the original site. The news is organized by individual stock, or by the stock market in general. Both are good views to have via one-click. News articles also show the stocks prices in Yahoo's format at the bottom of the article, making it easy to click and find stock information.
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Full access without having to create an account, which is also an added bonus and there's no way I remember my password. After about a week of using it, I did eventually create a new Yahoo username so the list syncs somewhere.
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Easier to find pre and after hour trading. That information is listed right under the stock when the time is appropriate, and even in the list view favorite stocks.
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Faster availability of IPO stocks when compared to Google.
All in all, Yahoo Finance is my new Finance app to replace Google Finance. I'm a bit sad to delete Google Finance, but without updates, change was inevitable. The upside to this is I'm so happy with Yahoo Finance that I may look into some of their other applications, and possibly switching to the Yahoo Finance on the PC as well.