Why Don't My Historical Stock Prices Match Yahoo Finance?

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The three kinds of “close”

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Real numbers: Fruit Stand vs. Yahoo Finance

• AAPL, January 2, 2020. Apple actually closed at $300.35. Yahoo shows $75.09 because it divides by the 4-for-1 split in August 2020. Both adjusted closes are $72.27, which also takes out the dividends paid since.
• NVDA, June 7 and 10, 2024. Nvidia closed at $1,208.88 on Friday, June 7, then split 10-for-1 and opened Monday near $121. Yahoo’s Close shows $120.89 for Friday, which is $1,208.88 / 10. On June 10, after the split, raw and split-adjusted are the same.
• KO, June 12 and 15, 2026. Coca-Cola went ex-dividend on June 15 ($0.53 a share). No split, so Yahoo’s Close matches the raw close, but both adjusted closes are lower because of the dividends paid after each date.

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How to tell which price you have

• Compare one old date with a chart. If AAPL in early 2020 shows about $300, it's raw. About $75 means split-adjusted. About $72 means split- and dividend-adjusted.
• Look for the jump on a split date. In raw prices, NVDA drops about 90% from June 7 to June 10, 2024. In adjusted prices there’s no jump.
• Check the latest day. Raw, split-adjusted and adjusted closes are equal on the most recent date, since no corporate actions have happened after it.

select
    date,
    close,
    adjusted_close,
    round(adjusted_close / close, 4) as adjustment_factor
from security_price_history_vw
where code = 'NVDA'
  and exchange_code = 'US'
  and date between '2024-06-05' and '2024-06-12'
order by date;

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Which close should you use?

• Returns, backtests and charts over time: the adjusted close. It’s the only one where a split doesn’t look like a crash and dividends count.
• What a share actually traded for on a date: the raw close. Use it for trade reconciliation, cost basis or a historical market cap.
• Matching Yahoo’s Close column: the raw close divided by the splits since, which most databases don’t store. In practice, compare adjusted with Adj Close instead.
• Avoid mixing them. A return from a raw close to an adjusted close is meaningless. See Adjusted Close vs. Close for more on when each applies.

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Other reasons prices differ

• After-hours closes. Some datasets, including Snowflake Curated Data, use the after-hours close. On days with news after the bell it can be 5–9% away from the official close. Snowflake’s Free Stock Prices vs. Paid shows real examples.
• Adjustment timing. Adjusted history changes every time a new dividend posts. If you saved Yahoo’s Adj Close last year, it won’t match today’s.
• Dates and time zones. Some APIs return timestamps in UTC, which can shift a close onto the next calendar day.

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F.A.Q.