In this tutorial, we will explain how to download stock price data from Yahoo! Finance.
Yahoo! Finance is a great source for obtaining historical data on financial securities such as stocks, stock market indices (e.g., S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, FTSE 100), and ETFs. It has global coverage, and the data is free to download.
Step-by-step guide for downloading historical stock price data
- Obviously, the first thing to do is to go to Yahoo! Finance.
- Once you are there, begin typing the name of the security (e.g., Microsoft) into the search bar. If you know the symbol used by Yahoo! (e.g., MSFT for Microsoft), you could type that instead as well.
- In the dropdown list that shows up, click on the desired result, which will take you to the main page for that security.
- Then, click on the Historical Data tab. This will take you to the page where you can download the data. Here, you can choose the Time Period and Frequency (daily, weekly, or monthly) that you prefer. Most often you will want the historical prices, but you can use the Show filter to choose between historical prices, dividends only, and stock splits.
- Once ready, hit Apply and the data on the page will be updated based on the time period and frequency you selected. You can then simply click the Download button to save this data on your device.
We have also prepared a Youtube video “Downloading stock price data | Analyzing stock returns #1” where we demonstrate these steps to download the historical prices of the Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) and Kellogg Company (K).
What is next?
This post is part of the series on analyzing stock returns. The next post in the series is plotting stock prices and returns.
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