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How to Use Google to Find Stock and Mutual Fund Quotes
As you probably know, the simple Google search box is capable of many amazing things. One of those things is being able to automatically recognize a stock symbol and look up that stock’s associated quote. All you have to do is type in the ticker symbol into any Google search box and you will see the stock quote.
For example, if you just type the letter f into Google’s search box, you will see Ford Motor Company’s stock quote atop of the 3.35 billion other search results for the letter f.
Google is also capable of finding mutual fund quotes. If you type in IDTOX, a popular ING mutual fund, you will see its quote atop the search results, as shown below:
Those two examples both worked out well. However, let’s say you want to see how XM Satellite Radio’s stock is doing. If you simply type XM into the search box, things don’t go so smoothly, as you can see below.
To take care of this problem, you can use the stock operator. Just type stock: in front of the company you are looking for and voila, Google is able to find it.
As you can see, you may notice that some stocks don’t always use the symbol that could be best-matched to them. XM Radio’s stock symbol is actually XMSR.
You may have guessed that when you use the stock: operator, you don’t even need to know the symbol of the company. For example, if you wanted to see how the maker of Cheerios, General Mills, is doing financially you can type in stock: General Mills. Almost as if by magic, Google looks up the company and finds its stock quote and returns it to you in only 0.67 seconds.
If you have any questions or comments, they are welcomed below.
How to Use Google to Get Free University Lectures
When I was still attending college, many times my science teachers were unable to clearly explain certain concepts. The book usually wasn’t much better either. One thing that saved my GPA was the ability to view the lectures of other Professors from other universities around the country.
I was able to do this for free without paying a dime of tuition to any other university.
How to Get Free Lectures
Many professors now put their PowerPoint lectures online for their students to view. An advantage of this is that if the PowerPoint Lectures are available online, Google will index them, allowing internet users to find them when they perform Google searches.
All you have to do is put the following into a Google search box:
filetype:ppt site:edu [topic of lecture you want]
How It Works
The filetype:ppt tells Google to search for only PowerPoint files — nothing else.
The site:edu tells Google to only search sites that end in .edu, which is reserved for institutions of higher education.
Then when you type your keywords in, Google only returns PowerPoint files from United States universities.
Here are a few examples as to what you can find for free online, all written by highly-educated university faculty:
filetype:ppt site:edu DNA Replication returns the following results:
filetype:ppt site:edu Federal Reserve Monetary Policy returns the following results:
filetype:ppt site:edu Minoan Civilization returns the following results:
A Vast Database of Knowledge
As you can see, a PowerPoint has been made to teach almost every imaginable subject. Even the Minoan Civilization has 36 PowerPoints that discuss it.
Many times, a PowerPoint is also much easier to read than an encyclopedic article. Also, since these were written by professional educators, you are more likely to understand what they are saying. If not, you can always try a different PowerPoint, and you’ll get the subject from the point of view of another teacher.
What if You Don’t Have PowerPoint?
If you don’t have PowerPoint installed on your computer and you don’t want to shell out the couple hundred dollars to get it, there are still four ways to view the PowerPoint files for free:
- The most compatible way is to download the Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer.
- Another method is to get the freely available and open productivity suite, OpenOffice.org, which comes with built-in support for Microsoft PowerPoint files.
- You can click the View as HTML link on the second line of the search result summary. This is the quickest method, but many special effects will not show up.
- If you have a Google account, you can use Google Docs to open up the PowerPoint file and view/edit it.
If you have any questions on this Google tip, just put it in the comments below and I will answer it. Thanks for reading!
How to Use Google to Find Websites Similar to the Ones You Love
At one time or another, almost all internet users have come across a website that they immediately want to bookmark because it is so useful. Have you ever wondered if there was another website just like the one you bookmarked? Even if there was, how would you be able to find it?
Google can help you find websites that are similar to each other by using the related: operator.
As an example, suppose that you grew up watching The Weather Channel and have always used their companion website, Weather.com to check the weather in your area. Lately, however you have become disenchanted with their website over the appearance of their weather maps. To find an alternative weather website all you have to do is type the following into a Google search box:
related:weather.com
This will show you all sites that Google deems to be similar to Weather.com. You should get something similar to the following results:
Note that this list includes the National Weather Service, which is the weather group that has the authority to issue watches and warnings, and is also where a lot of websites get their weather data.
You may also notice that Google isn’t perfect. While these four websites are excellent, I wonder why one of Weather.com’s biggest competitors, Accuweather didn’t make the list. You may also notice that when you scroll down, the 10th results is TVGuide.com. Perhaps Google did this since both websites contain the word channel in them.
In any case, I have found this tool to be very useful when it comes to finding websites that are similar to others.
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