Yahoo overhauls Yahoo Finance for iOS, web

SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo Finance is the latest Yahoo mainstay to be overhauled — this time with a revamped app for Apple mobile devices and a sweeping update to the Yahoo Finance website that adds interactive tools and personalization.

The new app for iPhone and iPad delivers a stream of financial news and data based on the stocks in your own portfolio. It also incorporates more of the "swiping" and "pinching" actions that have become second nature to mobile app users.

Among other features, redesigned stock charts let you track historical changes and compare performance to identify trends.

On the web, the main Yahoo Finance page — available later today — will include a list of the stocks you follow in the top left corner that you can get to easily from anywhere on the finance site.

Additionally:

— A portfolio feature lets you sync brokerage accounts for a "real-time view" of performance.

— A new calendar feature lists potentially market-moving events for the day.

— "Trending Tickers" lets you view stocks trending at the moment among Yahoo users.

Alex Diaz, Yahoo vice president for Mobile, says that the company wanted the iOS changes to be a "beautiful" extension of the desktop experience.

The overhaul also brings financial news and data together across the desktop and mobile app in a more consistent way. The app update for now is for iOS only.

In recent months Yahoo has revamped its weather app for iOS devices and the My Yahoo personalized start page, among other things. The weather app in particular took a leap forward in utility and design, pulling in location-based Flicker images and lively renderings of things like wind speed.

In September, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said monthly traffic overall at Yahoo had surpassed 800 million monthly active visitors, not including its recently acquired social blogging site Tumblr. That was up 20 percent since she stepped into the top job 15 months prior.

The Yahoo Finance site dominates its category. In September it drew 34 million unique visitors, according to researcher Comscore, up 9 percent from the year before and well ahead of No. 2 Dow Jones sites, at 22 million.

As it works to make its services more appealing to younger and more mobile audiences, one of the company's big challenges is to boost its online advertising revenue. In October, Yahoo reported another drop in quarterly revenue, suggesting Mayer's efforts to launch new products and lure more users has yet to translate into more money for the giant Web portal.

Follow Nancy Blair on Twitter: @nansanfran.