Starting from today, Google shows real-time price data for all NASDAQ stocks, informs Google Finance Blog. Google partnered with CNBC, Wall Street Journal, Xignite and managed to convince NASDAQ that providing free access to real-time stock data is the right thing to do. "With universal access to the Internet and the real-time nature of the web, investors need real time data, and now they don't have to pay for it," said Adena Friedman, Executive Vice President at NASDAQ.
Until today, the information was delayed at least 15 minutes and you had to subscribe to financial sites like Bloomberg to get real-time data. "It's important to have up-to-date market data. It's equally important that that data stay up to date. Consequently, we're enabling the streaming of quotes across Google Finance. Prices will update automatically, once per second, to reflect current market conditions," mentions Google.
The real-time data is available at Google Finance (not yet in the charts), in the financial OneBox, but also at CNBC.com, WSJ.com, MarketWatch.com and Barrons.com. Google Finance shows stock prices in the title, so you can open Google Finance in a new window and minimize it to see the latest updates in the status bar.
Meanwhile, Yahoo partnered with a third-party to show real-time data for all important US stocks, not just for NASDAQ stocks, in Yahoo Finance. "Why did Google choose to work with NASDAQ instead of BATS, the third-party share-exchange that is providing Yahoo's (YHOO) free quotes? From what we hear, because Google, et al, don't think BATS's information is accurate enough," comments Silicon Alley Insider.