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View an Interactive Graph of the Dow Jones Industrial Average Using Google
With all of the publicity the stock market has received in the last six months, I really wanted to see how far the Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen in the past six months. As you will find out below, the Dow Jones recently hit a 12 year low in the past week.
Fortunately, Google makes it easy to view a graph of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, as well as other stock indices. You can also view graphs for individual stocks.
How to Use Google to Find a Graph of the Dow Jones Industrial Average
To view a graph of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, all you have to do is type dji into Google. Google brings up a page of results showing you the current stock price and a graph of today’s activity, as shown below:
To view a larger graph, all you have to do is click on the blue DJI link in the upper-left corner of the results section. After clicking, you will see a graph of today’s activity. Here’s the graph we got when we searched for this on Monday:
You’ll notice in gray print at the bottom that the stocks are provided in real-time. This lets you see the exact price that the stock is trading at right when you view the page. That explains the discrepancy in prices. From the time I loaded the first page, to the time I clicked on the DJI link, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained a little over 10 points. Google also updates this page live, so you don’t need to do anything. The page will just refresh the stock quote as it moves up or down.
A neat feature of this graph is that you can view any part of the graph from 1970 to the present. If you click on the Max link right above the graph portion, you will see a graph like the one below with nearly 40 years of price information from the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
You can easily see the upward trent in the mid-80’s to early 90’s when home computers became popular, and the even steeper upward trend when the internet took off in the mid to late 90’s. After that came the dot-com crash followed by a period of growth. At the far right, you an see the steep drop the Dow Jones Industrial Average has suffered since it’s high of over 14,000 in October of 2007.
If you want to zoom in on a specific time-period, you can do that with the slider bars just below the graph. If you wanted to find out the last time that the Dow Jones Industrial Average was below 7,000, you can slect the area between 1996 and 1998 to get a closer view:
As you move your mouse over the graph, Google automatically shows you the stock price and the date of the period where you are hovering. As you can see, the last time the DJIA traded below 7,000 was during the first 1/3 of 1997 — almost 12 years ago!
How to Use Google to View a Graph of Any Stock
You can also view a similar graph of any publicly traded stock. Simply type the symbol or the company name into a Google search box. Let’s say you wanted to view the stock of a popular restaurant corporation, Darden Restaurants, Inc. They are the parent company of The Olive Garden and Red Lobster, among others.
All you have to do is type darden restaurants into any Google search box and you will see the following:
Notice the Show stock quote fro DRI link right above the web address. Click this will show you a brief overview of their stock. You can see the opening price, the daily high, the daily low, the volume (amount of shares traded today), the average volume (amount of shares traded in an average day), and the market capitalization, which represents the stock price multiplied by the number of shares outstanding. The Market Capitalization represents a good indicator of how much the company is worth according to the public.
Let’s say you didn’t know that Darden Restaurants was the owner of Red Lobster, and you wanted to view a stock price for Red Lobster. Simply typing red lobster stock quote into Google will show Darden Restaurants as the first result along with a link to view their stock quote, as you can see in the screen shot below.
Clicking the stock quote link, and then the more details link will finally bring you a graph of Darden Restaurants’ stock information. This graph works similar to the one for the Dow Jones Industrial Average as shown above.
There you go! Now you can view every stock quote you ever wanted to see. Google Finance makes it easy to analyze trends and helps you make an educated guess as to where the stock is going next based on past results (although a guess is still a guess 
)
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Wow! It’s like a whole new way to become depressed by the lousy economy! Thanks Easy Googler!