The following web sites provide Stock Market Quotes and other useful financial information* Yahoo! Finance – get stock quotes, mortgage rates, up to date news, portfolio management resources, international market data, and message boards.* The NASDAQ Stock Market- detailed market and security information for the Nasdaq “Over The Counter” stock exchange. Also includes portfolio tracking and IPO information.* Quote.com- Lycos Finance – get stock quotes and streaming LiveCharts.* CNN/Money – combines practical personal finance advice, calculators and investing tips with business news, stock quotes, and financial market coverage.* PC Quote Online- free delayed and real time quotes and charts and news covering stocks, futures, options, and mutual funds.* BigCharts- stock charts, screeners, interactive charting and the latest breaking news from the markets.* MSN Money- investing, investment tools, business market news, headline news, articles, reports, stocks and quotes, message boards, and a stock ticker.* INO.com- futures, stocks, FOREX, options quotes, charts, and news for futures and options traders.* ADVFN- free stock quotes, stock charts, market news and live stock charting tools.* eoddata.com- free end of day stock market data and historical quotes for many of the world’s top exchanges including NASDAQ, NYSE, Toronto, FTSE, SGX, HKSE, and Paris.* Reuters.com- provides stock information including, stocks, stock quotes, stock investment strategies, and key company developments.* TradingCharts- source for free quotes and charts – over 30000 stock market, commodity futures, and forex price charts and quotations.* Barchart.com- futures and stocks quotes, charts, realtime advanced technical charting and analysis of stocks and commodities.

As every wise investor knows, getting the right information regarding stocks, gives one the knowledge necessary to make sensible investment decisions. Unlike earlier times when investors had to rely on limited stock quotes published in the daily newspapers or broadcast over radio or television, the internet is today full of real-time information on stocks. In some cases, quotes are delayed for a period not exceeding 30 minutes, during which analysts summarize and publish accurate information about the stock. In different sites, one can easily find out what the mutual funds, bonds, indexes, stocks, and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) are trading for. In addition to stock quotes, one can access earning reports, financial reports, short interest reports, analyst coverage, and SEC filing on and about specific companies from the web. Knowing the history of the company helps the investor decide whether the stock is solid enough to warrant his or her investment.Most stock quotes are freely accessible, and all one has to do is identify the most informative site for use. To make the user experience even more rewarding, some of the sites that quote trade prices on specific stocks allow the user to download the information into computer applications like OpenOffice and Microsoft excel among others. Should one chose a site like Yahoo! Finance or MSN Money, he or she would be able to examine price quotes on a specific company by typing the company’s name into a provided text box. In cases where an investor wants to compare stock prices for different companies, he or she can type the names (or acronyms) of the companies, he or she is interested in, and click on the search icon.For investors who are curious about where websites like Yahoo! Finance, MSN money or DailyFinance.com get their information from, it is worth noting that the websites rely on more than 3,000 information sources. Some of the sources stream similar information into the websites, and it is hence the website administrator’s job to compare the information and verify that only the most accurate is published on the website. Investors’ evaluation of stock quotes is further boosted by the interactive charts published on different financial websites across the internet. Company events such as financial earnings and dividends given to the shareholders can also be used as a viable indicator regarding the company’s financial performances and hence the level of risk attached to its stock.Across different financial websites, real-time stock quotes are available from stock exchanges such as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), American Stock Exchange (AMEX), and NASDAQ. To access quotes from other countries, one may need to search the specific stock exchanges where the stock is listed. With the internet making the world a global village, investors interested in oversee stocks can access quotes on stocks in a similar way that they access quotes on domestic companies. This has made business for the oversee investor not only fast, but also effective.

Frustrated by all the symbols in a stock quote? Here’s a basic overview to reading a stock quote on Yahoo Finance.If you’re like many new stock market investors you are learning all sorts of new things, one of the many things you need to know is how to read a stock quote.Yahoo Finance has a nice stock quote page, please follow along and go to this web page http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=msft and find out what everything means.Near the top of the page it will tell you that you are looking up Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) this tells us what company we are looking at. You will then see the last price (which is delayed 20 minutes) and you will see how much the stock has gone up or down for the day.If you scroll down the page you will find a table with a bunch of data.Last Trade: This is the last trade that happened on this stock (delayed 20 minutes)Trade Time: This is the date or the time of the tradeChange: Amount the stock traded up or down in dollars and percentagePrev. Close: The amount the stock closed at the last day it traded. Generally the day before, unless holiday or weekendOpen: Price the stock opened at today or if weekend or holiday last day it tradedBid: What various investors are looking to buy the stock for at the current momentAsk: What various investors are willing to sell the stock for at the current moment1 yr Est: Estimate for the stock’s price in one year’s timeDay’s Range: The range in price the stock has traded that day52wk Range: Stock price from low to high over the past year of tradingVolume: Number of shares of stock traded so far todayAvg. Vol (3m): Average number of shares traded each day for the past 3 monthsMarket Cap: This is the market price for the company take the number of shares outstanding and multiple by the price of the stockP/E: Price to earnings ratioEPS: Earnings per shareDiv & Yield: The dividend (if any) that you could receive from the company for owning stockThose are the basic items on that Yahoo finance page; you can also find charts, headlines and some more background information on the company.