If you’re an investor, trader, or anyone with an interest in the stock market, being able to access live stock prices can be incredibly beneficial. Google Sheets, with its powerful and flexible features, provides a simple and effective way to track live stock prices. In this blog, we’ll walk you through the steps to do so.
Step 1: Open Google Sheets
First things first, open a new Google Sheets document. You can do this by navigating to the Google Sheets website and clicking on the ‘Blank’ option to create a new spreadsheet.
Step 2: Use the GOOGLEFINANCE Function
Google Sheets comes with a built-in function called GOOGLEFINANCE which fetches current or historical securities information from Google Finance. Here’s how you can use it:
=GOOGLEFINANCE("TICKER", "attribute")
In the function above, replace “TICKER” with the ticker symbol of the stock you’re interested in. The “attribute” entry should be replaced by what information you want about the stock. For live price, use “price”. For example, if you want to know the current price of Apple Inc., your function would look like this:
=GOOGLEFINANCE("AAPL", "price")
Step 3: Format Your Data
The GOOGLEFINANCE function will return the live price of the stock in the cell where you typed the formula. Remember, the price updates in real time, so you’ll always have the most current information.
If you want to track multiple stocks, you can simply input the GOOGLEFINANCE function into additional cells with different ticker symbols.
Step 4: Customizing Your Data
The GOOGLEFINANCE function offers a variety of attributes you can monitor, not just the price. It can also return information like volume, high, low, market cap and more. To get these details, simply replace “price” with the desired attribute. For example, to get the market cap of Apple Inc., your function would be:
=GOOGLEFINANCE("AAPL", "marketcap")
You can find a full list of attributes supported by the GOOGLEFINANCE function in the Google Sheets documentation.
Conclusion
Google Sheets is a powerful tool for tracking financial data. With the GOOGLEFINANCE function, you can easily monitor live stock prices right from your spreadsheet. Remember, the data updates in real time, so you’ll always have the most accurate and current information. Happy tracking!