What Is the Yahoo Finance App?

The Yahoo Finance app has become one of the most popular, authoritative online sources for stock market updates and financial news. Released in 2009, the Yahoo Finance app grew to over 90 million users by the beginning of the current decade.

After undergoing major makeovers in 2023, the mobile app and its desktop counterpart have evolved into a robust, comprehensive tool for personal finance, investments, and news. In this post, Gorilla Trades takes a look at the Android version of Yahoo Finance and explains how you can use it to manage your investments.

stock market

A Quick History of the Yahoo Finance App

The desktop version of Yahoo Finance was released in 2009. The following year, the mobile Yahoo Finance app was released around the end of the first smartphone boom. Over the next decade, the app underwent several updates to its interface and gradually added more features.

Yahoo Finance has evolved into one of the top financial apps on the market, with a huge user base and an easy-to-use interface. It’s one of the most complete financial apps not directly connected to a financial company. The service remains free, but users can upgrade to premium tiers to get access to more robust features.

Yahoo Finance App Features

The free version of Yahoo Finance has many tools for quotes, news, stock portfolio management, and alternative investments. Here’s a look at each screen.

Home Screen

The first page that comes up when you open the Yahoo Finance app is the home screen. The top band lists summaries of daily movements on major stock market indexes and specific markets like the following:

Crude oil
Precious metals
Foreign exchanges
Cryptocurrency

Taking up most of the home screen is the watchlist module. This feature allows the user to build their watchlists for a quick upfront summary. Users commonly make watchlists that duplicate their brokerage portfolios so they can see how they’re doing at a glance. They can also build lists of commodities they want to keep an eye on.

Tapping on any of the “buttons” on the top band and the watchlist takes you to a more informative close-up page. This offers a summary of the following elements:

Key statistics
Price movements over different time frames
Latest news on the commodity
The option to set automatic price alerts for the stock

You can also select “list details” at the bottom of the home page to see more detailed information about the companies on your watchlist. Across the bottom of the home page is a row that shows the other major pages in the app, starting with the news page. You can search for commodities on the home page as well.

News

The news page includes articles and news videos from authoritative and neutral news sources, including:

Reuters
The Wall Street Journal
Bloomberg
Fortune
Associated Press
Other Yahoo Finance pages

The vast majority of the articles are dedicated to financial topics, with a few ads sprinkled in.

Markets

The markets page covers the entire commodities marketplace. Users navigate the markets section by scrolling through the top option band. It correlates to the major investment categories. They can also search for commodities by tapping on the search icon in the top-right part of the screen.

Overview

The front page of the markets module defaults to a summary of the values of the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and NASDAQ. Scrolling down, you’ll find summaries of other world indexes, commodities, bonds, and currencies. You can choose to see data from U.S., European, and Asian exchanges.

Stocks

The Stocks page contains summaries of the stock market in a few sections:

Trending Equities, showing stocks that are spiking in user views
Most Active, showing the equities most traded on the day
Day Gainers and Losers
52-Week Gainers and Losers
Trending Earning Reports
Earnings Surprises
High Dividend Yield
Investment Strategies
Market Values

Tapping on any of these features leads to bigger lists of stocks centered around those themes. The stocks page also features a few modules only available to premium users.

Crypto

The crypto page lists the most actively traded cryptocurrencies, including daily and yearly gainers and losers, as well as the cryptocurrencies with the largest market caps.

ETF

This page features exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that are trending in the U.S. and world markets. The ETFs are classified into quite a few categories, including:

Most Active
Index ETFs
Long-term holdings
Top performers
Low-cost funds
P/E ratio

Scrolling left of the ETF will direct you to reports on bonds, precious metals, and commodity ETFs.

Mutual Fund

The mutual fund page summarizes some of the most notable and trending mutual funds. These are just some of the classifications you can find on the page:

Activity
Gainers and losers
Growth funds
Low-risk funds
Category-specific funds

Like the ETF page, the mutual fund page houses mutual funds featuring bonds, precious metals, and commodities.

Options

The last section of the markets page displays trends in options trading, indicating call and put options, strike prices, and trading volume. The page is further divided between gainers and losers.

Account

The last of the bottom bar options takes you to a page where you can change account settings. You can also go here to set active price and event reminders and review all the notifications on your account.

Premium Features

In addition to the free account, Yahoo Finance offers three premium plans with a lot of added features: Bronze, Silver, and Gold. Yahoo characterizes these tiers as being appropriate for different kinds of investors.

For example, Bronze is good for “monitoring 401Ks, IRAs, and investment accounts,” whereas Silver is for stocks and funds investors. Gold, by contrast, is ideal for options, crypto, and more. Although this article focuses on the free level, these premium levels may have features that could be of use to you.

Using Yahoo Finance for Stock Market Updates

There are a few ways to get alerts on stock price movements and other updates on the Yahoo Finance app.

Set a Price Alert

To set real-time stock alerts, search for a commodity that you want to track. Tapping on the result directs you to the commodity’s page. Scroll down a little to get to the summary section. Partway down that page, you’ll see the option to “set price alert.”

You have five choices for getting price alerts:

-10%
-5%
+5%
+10%
Custom

Just tapping on one of the percentage buttons will activate the price alert. The custom option takes you to a screen where you can pick a share price and set an alert for when the stock hits that level.

Manage Price Alerts

On the accounts page, you can manage your active price alerts and event reminders. Under “custom alerts,” tap on either “active price alerts” or “active events reminders.”

On the active price alert screen, you’ll see all your currently active alerts. You can delete price alerts you don’t need anymore with the edit option. Also, you can review price alerts that have already been executed.

On the “event reminders” page, you can set alerts for earnings reports, IPOs, and SEC filings. Use the plus sign in the top-right corner to display upcoming events, tap on the ones you’re most interested in, and tap on “set reminder” to create an alert.

Stay on Top of Your Portfolio With Yahoo Finance

Yahoo Finance is one of the most comprehensive stock tracking apps online. With its deep media connections and instantly accessible functions, it’s easy to stay informed and alert about what’s happening in the investment marketplace.