There is no shortage of places online that provide current stock quotes. Using nearly any type of internet-connected device will let you enter a ticker symbol to get the latest quote on a traded security. Traditionally, historical quotes on stocks and indexes were harder to come by for the general public, but this is no longer the case.

Getting Historical Quotes on Securities

If you're looking for a historical range of data on an individual security then you can use Investopedia's Markets section to find what you need.

In order to navigate to the historical data, enter the ticker symbol of the equity you're interested in on the main page. This will take you to the quote page of the ticker symbol you entered.

From there click on "Historical Data" in the quote page navigation.

This tool lets you enter a date range as well as daily, weekly or monthly closing prices.  In addition to pricing data you can also look at historical dividends and stock splits.  

As examples, here you can find the historical data for a number of popular equities:

Getting Historical Quotes on Indices

If you're just looking for the three major U.S. indices, then our Markets homepage features historical pricing for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq:

Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Historical Pricing

You can adjust the dates along the top of the graph to see the historical data of the three indices.  If you're looking for a more robust set of historical pricing data, the Caltech Quantitative Finance Group does a great job of providing a landscape of the available market data feed options.  

To learn more, we have articles covering data mining for investors, as well as the good, bad and ugly side of indices.