Finance Blog

Improved Company Comparisons

2009-10-15T08:05:00.000-07:00

Posted by Tianpeng Jin, Software Engineer

Now there is a faster and easier to use company comparison page on Google Finance! Many of you query multiple companies at the same time, so we have worked to make the results better. Let us take a look at this comparison of HP & DELL.

First, the comparison chart displays price changes for all the companies you include. Next to the chart, you will see news related to all of those companies. You can navigate the chart, zoom in and out, and click on news stories just as you can on the chart on a regular stock page.

You will find a table of key metrics such as price or market cap right below the chart, and can customize the metrics by adding or removing columns from the table. Your configuration will be saved and applied to future comparisons as your personal setting.

You can also add more companies to the page. Enter the ticker in the input box above the price chart and click! You will find the new company's price, news and table metrics have been added.

Last but not least, Google Finance now supports cross-country stock comparison. Compare any public stocks from across the world. For example, you can compare Apple with HTC Corporation.

Google Search Volumes and Economic Activity

2009-09-03T15:38:00.001-07:00

Posted by Ayan Mandal, Product Manager and Eric Schrock, Software Engineer

We are really excited to launch Google Domestic Trends on Google Finance. This launch was inspired by Hal Varian, our chief economist's research on using Google Trends data to predict economic indicators.

Google Domestic Trends tracks Google search traffic across specific sectors of the economy. The changes in the search volume of a given sector on google.com may provide useful economic insight. We have created 23 indexes that track the major economic sectors, such as retail, auto and unemployment. Each index value is baselined at 1.0 on January 1, 2004 and is calculated and displayed on the Google Finance charts as a 7-day moving average. You can easily compare actual stocks and market indexes to these Google Trends on the charts.

For example, the Google Unemployment Index tracks queries like [unemployment], [social security], [unemployment benefits] and so forth. We see that as the recession took hold in the latter half of 2008, this index increased quite dramatically.

Predicting real-world statistics
We wondered if Google search volumes in a month can help better predict real world statistics well before they are officially tabulated and released.

Predicting retail sales
The US Census Bureau releases the Advance Monthly Retail Sales survey 1–2 weeks after the close of each month. These figures are based on a mail survey from a number of retail establishments and are thought to be useful leading indicators of macroeconomic performance. Learn more about the survey and the procedures followed in constructing these numbers.

The retail sales data is organized according to the NAICS retail trade categories. The data is reported in both seasonally adjusted and unadjusted form; for the analysis in this section, we use only the unadjusted data for the NAICS category 448 (clothing and clothing accessories stores).

Google Domestic Trends data
The Google Retail Index tracks query volumes on Google.com related to the retail trade category. Sample queries are [retail], [bags], [retail sales] and so forth. For this analysis we use the index value (30 day moving average) in the middle of the month. Thus, to predict retail sales of March, 2008 we use the index value on March 15th, 2008.

We observe that the Mean Absolute Error improves from 6.52% to 3.65% (an improvement of 44%)!

You can read more about Hal's research on using Google Trends data to predict economic activities on the Google Research Blog.

The data for these indexes are available for download — so you can use it with your own models. If you find interesting patterns and uses, feel free to share with us!

Splits and dividends now tracked in portfolios

2009-08-21T07:53:00.000-07:00

Posted by Patrick Coskren, Software Engineer

One of our most frequent user requests is that portfolios automatically account for splits and dividends. Starting today, they do. Transaction view lists all splits and dividends during the time period when you hold a stock. When a stock splits, your quantity is automatically adjusted in Performance view. Dividends are automatically deposited into your cash holdings.

An example will help here: suppose you purchased 100 shares of GE on Dec 31, 1999, at a price of $51.53. When it split 3:1 on May 8, 2000, you'd have found yourself holding 300 shares. Google Finance portfolios will now accurately reflect the split, showing your purchase of 100 shares in Transactions view, but accurately reporting your current holdings as 300 shares in Performance view. At the same time, your cash value will now be $2,459.69, thanks to all the dividends GE has since your purchase.

For those of you who have been monitoring your stock performance, we know that you have manually adjusted your shares. We have ensured that we do not split-adjust your split-adjusted shares. Users' transactions that have a fully specified set of date, shares and purchase price will be back-adjusted to account for subsequent splits.

For more information, see our help center, and as always we invite feedback at the comments link below. Happy splitting!

Streaming charts and other updates this week

2009-07-20T18:56:00.000-07:00

Posted by Dion Loy, Software Engineer

A number of small features and fixes have been rolled out to everyone:

Streaming charts. We have had streaming real-time prices for quite some time, and now the charts have caught up to the rest of the page. The price plotted will updated as new prices are streamed into your browser. This should be useful for keeping an eye on earnings reports this month, especially in extended hours trading!

A toggle has been added to the top of the recent quotes module to select the absolute change or percentage change. You could actually toggle the selection before the header was introduced, by clicking on the change price/percentage itself, but this makes it more discoverable.

Bug fixes for Opera users on portfolios, and some IE users on index pages.

Watch this space for more updates as we roll out new features on Google Finance.

A Brand New Look and Feel for Google Finance!

2009-07-07T12:23:00.000-07:00

Posted by Ayan Mandal, Product Manager

Over the last few months, we experimented with some changes on the site. We tried a couple of new layouts and received lots of feedback and suggestions from users and Googlers alike. Now, we're excited to launch a newly redesigned Google Finance!

Our goal, first and foremost, was to make our current market data, news, and portfolios easily accessible from anywhere on the site. To that end, the most obvious change is the addition of a left-hand navigation bar that lets you move between the major sections of the site in one click.

Links to sub-sections, like Portfolio-related news or individual portfolios, let you dive even deeper.

We're also launching a number of new features to Google Finance that we hope give you more access to data and provide added flexibility.

You can now plot your favorite technical indicators (Simple Moving Averages, Bollinger Bands, etc.) on the Google Finance charts by clicking the Technicals link under the chart. Plus you can view OHLC and Candlestick charts too. Click Settings under any chart to get started. (We're really happy about this launch, specifically; technical indicators were one of our most highly requested features.)

Streaming real-time Recent Quotes are now displayed on the left-hand navigation bar and are hence accessible from any page on the site.

Comparing related companies is now easy with our new interactive tool. From any company's summary page (for example, CSCO's), click Add or Remove Columns in the Related Companies section, and add the financial metrics you want to track.

You can customize the homepage. If you see a small drop-down arrow on the right side of a section's title bar, that section can be moved around the page. Click the arrow, and you can choose to move that section up, move it down, move it all the way to the top of the page, or minimize it.

So take a tour around the site -- click around the left-nav, play with the technical indicators; move some sections around the page -- and let us know what you think. If you have feedback or questions, visit the Help Center.

Cheers,
Ayan

Shhh...testing in progress

2009-03-27T14:26:00.000-07:00

Posted by Ayan Mandal, Product Manager

Over the course of the next few weeks, you might notice a few changes to Google Finance. We will be running some experiments on the look and feel of our site, based on an accumulation of user research and feedback. They will only be visible to a small number of random Google Finance users. (In case you're wondering, experiments are selected randomly, so we can't give you any advice for how to get in!)

It's pretty normal for us to run this kind of test, as we're always working to improve the experience of using Google Finance . In fact, experiments like these are a cornerstone of Google's development process - here's a post on the Official Google Blog explaining this practice for our search results.

Finance for Android application launched

2009-03-03T15:19:00.000-08:00

Posted by Arun Mathew, lead engineer, and Nick Fey, user experience designer

A year ago here at Google, an engineer (Arun Mathew) and a user experience designer (Nick Fey) set out to build a Finance mobile application for Android that would both showcase the possibilities of this new mobile OS and be a lightning fast way for users to access their Google Finance portfolios. The original goal was to address the frustration of having to set up all the stocks you want to track when using a new mobile portfolio; we're excited to have delivered on this goal for our users. You will notice that the first time you open the Android app, your portfolio is automatically downloaded in the background and it continually syncs with the Google Finance when running, so any changes on the phone will be seen on the website.

As the application took shape we added additional features with the aim of allowing users to get stock quotes, market data and news as fast as possible. Highlights include real-time streaming quotes in your portfolio, rapid stock look-ups with search auto-suggestion, and 'recent quotes' to speed up receiving quotes on-the-go; for each stock there are detailed quotes, charts and news available. At the moment, this financial data is restricted to US exchanges only.

Throughout development we attracted additional engineers and designers, all volunteering their 20% time. A special thanks goes out to David Fuchs, David Ko, and Bob Rose for all the time and effort spent building the application, as well as to the many other engineers and designers that helped make this a product worth launching.

Finance for Android is available now on the Android marketplace or you can install it with this barcode if you have the barcode scanner application.

Screenshots:

Markets view

Portfolios view

Company page

Stock quote lookup displaying autosuggest

Ads on Google Finance

2008-11-17T15:38:00.001-08:00

Posted by R.J. Pittman, Director, Product Management

We've introduced something new to Google Finance. You will notice we are now displaying small, targeted advertisements on some pages of Google Finance. The ads are visible on the homepage next to the market summary, and on company summary pages below the first few news stories. We have worked carefully to integrate the advertising to enhance the user experience. Our goal is to always show you relevant ads that you will find useful. Google Finance is now positioned to bring users a choice of relevant financial information and services through contextual advertising. And as with all of our products and search properties, we'll be continually working to increase the quality of the ads and the overall usefulness of the site.

If you want more information about the ads on Google Finance, visit the Help Center. From there, you can also send feedback using our suggestion form. Additionally, you can read more about our new advertising initiatives in the latest post on our company blog.

Plot Feeds is back

2008-08-22T08:13:00.000-07:00

Posted by Ayan Mandal, Product Manager

And ... we're back. You can once again view blogs and plot feeds on Google Finance charts. Access to blogs provides a greater range of information than conventional news alone; plotting a particular feed lets you view its information in the context of a stock's performance.

Click the 'Blogs' tab from any company's summary page, and you'll see the blogosphere's coverage of that company plotted along the chart. Or, if you want to plot specific blogs on the chart -- blogs you know, blogs you search for, or blogs you write -- click the 'Feeds' tab. Search for a blog or type its URL, and the blog posts will be plotted on the company's chart, making it easy for you to discover the blogs that provide high-quality analysis and breaking news.

Try this feature out and let us know what you think. Stay tuned for more as we continue to enhance Google Finance.

Plot Feeds unavailable for the moment

2008-08-14T15:16:00.000-07:00

Posted by Ayan Mandal, Product Manager

As you may have noticed, the Google Finance site was inaccessible to some users for several hours earlier this morning. We’ve now restored the site, but it will take us a bit longer to restore the blogs and feeds feature that we launched yesterday.

We’re working feverishly on a fix and will let you know as soon as these features are back up.

If you're experiencing any technical difficulties, we encourage you to visit the Google Finance Help Center.

Plotting more than news on the charts

2008-08-13T07:29:00.000-07:00

Posted by Vivi Costache, 20% Charting Wizard

Plotting news stories on the company charts has always been one of my favorite features of Google Finance. Today, I'm happy to announce that we're pushing it even further!

First,you'll notice that we moved the Blogs section to a tab next to the News area. When you select the blog tab, relevant blog posts are listed and charted just like the news items, making it easier to see the blogosphere's coverage of your favorite stocks.

We've also added a tab called Feeds. There are a few ways you can use this tab:

Search for relevant feeds by typing keywords in the query box. Relevant results (like blogs or news feeds) are listed so you can choose which one to plot onto the chart, just like news stories and blog posts.
Use addresses from blogs you know, blogs you've written, or blogs you just found that you think are relevant to a stock. For example, one of my favorite URLs is http://AAPL.bloggingstocks.com/rss.xml. Enter it in the query box and you can see the news about Apple from bloggingstocks.com as flags on a company chart (hint: it works for most other symbols too!).

Use data from Google Spreadsheets. If you keep notes in a Google Spreadsheet about your investing decisions, you can publish that spreadsheet to the web and plot the entries along any Google Finance chart.

And best of all, if you find a blog or create a useful spreadsheet that you'd like to share with others, you can click "Link to chart" to send a link to your friends.

For more advanced tricks for the Feeds tab, you can visit our Help Center to learn more.

We're hoping this feature will encourage more, and more meaningful content creation by analysts, bloggers, and users alike. By giving users more content to compare with the stock performance over time we hope to help investors make financial decisions that are as informed as possible.

As always, let us know if you have any comments or suggestions.

Google Finance invests in Google Data

2008-06-26T16:18:00.000-07:00

Posted by Casey Ho and Steven Soneff, Software Engineering Interns

Our team is pleased to announce the release of a data API for Google Finance portfolios. This means that developers can build financial software that could give you easy access to your portfolios on your desktop, homepage, or mobile phone. If you know something about writing software and are interested in making this happen, check out the details on the Google Data API blog and let us know what you come up with!

It's raining real-time quotes!

2008-06-24T06:45:00.000-07:00

Posted by Matthew Simmons, Market Data Gnome; Ayan Mandal, Product Manager

Today, we're pleased to extend the availability of real-time quotes on Google Finance, Google.com and other Google search properties to include companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). We've partnered with the NYSE on a pilot project that enables us to offer users free access to more real-time stock quotes. Now you can follow companies listed on both NASDAQ and NYSE in a streaming real-time fashion every second of every day -- well, at least while the market is open.

As you know, we worked with the NYSE and SEC last year to make this data more accessible to our users and we're happy to finally see it come to fruition. Our goal is to provide our users with the tools and content that help them manage their portfolios, stay informed about breaking market changes, and easily access the financial information they're looking for. Providing up-to-the-second market data from two of the largest exchanges in the US helps us achieve that goal.

As always, if you encounter problems or have suggestions, please let us know.

Custom date range on the charts

2008-06-23T08:31:00.000-07:00

Posted by Andre Lebedev, Software Engineer

We are happy to have launched custom date entry on our charts. Try clicking the mouse over the date range in the top right corner and enter the exact date range for which you want the chart to be set.

Want to see the chart for all of 2007? Enter '2007' as start date, and '2008' as your end date, and the chart will reset to display the stock price for all trading dates of 2007.Want to see the chart for February of 2008? Enter '2008-02' for start date and '2008-03' for end date.

If you encounter problems or have suggestions, please let us know.

Put cash in your portfolio!

2008-06-19T10:03:00.000-07:00

Posted by Patrick Coskren, Portfolio Software Engineer

Portfolio cash support is one of the most requested features by our users. We listened: you can now add a cash balance to every portfolio you maintain. In the 'Add' section that appears on every portfolio page, you'll see a new 'Cash' tab where you can apply deposits and withdrawals to your cash holdings. Furthermore, your stock transactions -- both existing and new -- can be individually linked to your cash balance, so that a purchase or sale results in a matching debit or credit. All you have to do is click the new 'Cash-linked' checkbox on the 'Edit transactions' tab. No longer will your total portfolio value appear to drop just because you decide to realize your gains on a stock by selling.

Don't want to track cash? Don't worry. If you never enter a cash deposit or link a transaction to your cash balance, you'll never see a cash value in your portfolio.

This is just the beginning, so stay tuned. We've got plenty of ideas to improve our portfolio feature, and we're sure you do too! Please continue to share your ideas with us in the comments below, and if you find any problems, please let us know.

Bombay Stock Exchange pricing data

2008-06-12T16:42:00.000-07:00

Posted by Matthew Simmons, Market Data Gnome

We've just added support to Google Finance for Bombay Stock Exchange listings. In addition to news and descriptive data (which we already offer for these listings), you'll now see intra-day data and pretty charts. You can search for companies by name using the search box. You can also search by ticker -- for example, if you'd like to find the current price for stock in Reliance Power, you can search for it by name, as RPOL.BO, or as BOM:532939. Similarly, if you'd like to find the current price for stock in Zee Entertainment, you can search for it by name, as ZEE.BO, or as BOM:505537. The SENSEX can be found as .BSESN or ^BSESN. As always, if you find any problems, please let us know.

NASDAQ quotes go real-time on Google Finance!

2008-06-02T07:30:00.000-07:00

Posted by Matthew Simmons, Market Data Gnome

Today, we are excited to announce the launch of real-time last sale prices for NASDAQ listed stocks on Google Finance and other Google search properties. Google has partnered with NASDAQ for this pilot program in order to offer users free access to real-time stock quotes.

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.

As many of you are aware, we have worked on this for a long time. We believe providing real-time stock quotes is an important step to allow investors to make more timely and better informed investment decisions. From Wall Street to Main Street, everyone deserves equal access to the financial markets.

Hong Kong Stock Exchange pricing data

2008-05-08T08:51:00.000-07:00

Posted by Matthew Simmons, Market Data Gnome

We've just added support to Google Finance for Hong Kong Stock Exchange listings. In addition to news and descriptive data (which we already offer for these listings), you'll now see intra-day data and pretty charts. You can search for companies by name using the search box. You can also search by ticker -- for example, if you'd like to find the current price for stock in Hutchison Whampoa, you can search for it by name, as 0013.HK, or as HKG:0013.

Note: While we've added support for Hong Kong equities, we haven't yet added support for the Hang Seng indices. We're working on adding Hang Seng support, and will announce it here as soon as it's available.

Thanks for using Google Finance! As always, if you find any problems, please let us know.

A new home page and a new country!

2008-04-24T07:22:00.000-07:00

Posted by Ayan Mandal, Product Manager

You might have noticed today that our homepage has a new look. We've been listening to your feedback, and as a result have made it easier to follow the latest news affecting the market as well as those that are relevant to your portfolio. You can still view your portfolio's performance and recent quotes on the homepage. We hope the new look helps you find the financial information you're looking for much more quickly and easily!

The new homepage look is available on all Google Finance properties (U.S., Canada and the U.K.). And there's a new site addition too: Google Finance China. The Chinese stock market has been generating a lot of buzz, and there has been a pronounced increase in individual investing all across China. We are happy to offer Chinese investors access to Chinese stock and mutual fund information as well as to other global markets through our easy-to-use and familiar interface in Chinese. This is an exciting launch for us, and several engineers from our New York and Shanghai offices have worked hard to make this happen. This simultaneous launch of the new homepage with the Chinese site continues our momentum in adding new features and countries in the future. As always, we encourage you to send us your feedback, and stay tuned for more feature updates to come.

Taiwan Stock Exchange pricing data

2008-04-08T18:28:00.000-07:00

Posted by Matthew Simmons, Market Data Gnome

We've just added support to Google Finance for Taiwan Stock Exchange listings. In addition to news and descriptive data (which we already offer for these listings), you'll now see intra-day data and pretty charts. You can search for companies by name using the search box. You can also search by ticker -- for example, if you'd like to find the current price for stock in MediaTek, you can search for it by name, as 2454.TW, or as TPE:2454. Similarly, if you'd like to find the current price for stock in Cathay Financial, you can search for it by name, as 2882.TW, or as TPE:2882. The TAIEX can be found as .TWII or ^TWII.

As always, if you find any problems, please let us know.

Introducing the Stock Screener

2008-04-02T07:16:00.000-07:00

Posted by Daniel Switkin, Software Engineer

I'm very happy to announce that today we are introducing a new stock screener to Google Finance. If you haven't used one before, a screener is an advanced search tool that lets you find companies which match a set of criteria. For example, you could search for large companies with a PE ratio less than 20 which pay at least a 5% dividend. Or you could screen for small tech companies with strong 5 year growth. It's entirely up to your investment strategy.

There are a number of new and cool features I'd like to mention. Anytime you make adjustments like setting a value, removing a criteria, or limiting the search to a single exchange, the list of results updates automatically. The search is completely live -- no buttons to press. We also have blue and white histograms so you can see the distribution of all companies for a particular value--for example there are far more companies with a market cap below one billion dollars than above. You can either grab the sliders or type exact values to the set the minimum and maximum for each criteria.

Once you have run a screen that you like, you can bookmark the page or email the link to a friend. Since not all of the criteria may be familiar terms, we've included definitions in the Add Criteria wizard, as well as a help icon next to each line.

As always, please let us know how you like it. We're hard at work on new features and want to incorporate your suggestions. Happy screening!

iGoogle chart gadget fixes

2008-03-18T11:24:00.000-07:00

Posted by Vivi Costache, Software Engineer

A while ago we launched an iGoogle Finance tab with various gadgets. We received a ton of feedback from you, and one of the main questions was "why are there no fancy finance charts there"? It was a bit of a challenge to add those nice charts using iGoogle, so it took more time than we hoped. And now... the Google Finance Chart gadget is ready for you!

Add the Google Finance Chart gadget »

We've even added a configuration option for setting the default number of days on your gadget so that it best fits your trading habits.

So go ahead and watch your favorite stock (or combination of stocks by entering multiple tickers) on iGoogle and let us know if you have any other suggestions for our fancy charts gadget. We're listening.

Tell us what you think

2008-02-25T09:57:00.000-08:00

Posted by Marianne Berkovich, user experience researcher

We’re looking to get some organized feedback from y’all about Google Finance. Please take a few minutes to take our survey and tell us about how you use it -- which features you like, which you don’t use, and a bit about what kind of investor you are.

This survey will help us learn what’s working for you and focus our energies on the areas that matter most to you. We look forward to hearing from you!

Take our survey!

Google Finance heads across the pond

2008-01-30T07:15:00.000-08:00

Posted by Nick Fey, Google Finance designer

Being a British bloke I am particularly pleased to announce the launch of Google Finance in the UK (http://finance.google.co.uk). Now it's easier for us Brits to get our own European public and private company information as well as UK mutual fund data. In addition you can find GBP currency quotes on the home page, so we can feel smug about how much cheaper everything will be when we visit the U.S. The local UK business news will give you the latest information about the European markets and we will be improving the relevance of stories and speed of news delivery even more over the coming months.

This UK launch is the second in a series of local versions of the Google Finance site, following Google Finance Canada, which launched last summer. We have received many requests to bring this service to other countries around the world, and will be working to do that this year. Kudos to the small crew of engineers on the Finance site who have managed to do this as well as build some great new features that we will be rolling out in 2008.

Please feel free to leave comments on this blog or send us email through the Help Center requesting new features. While we can't respond to them all individually, don't feel that they are being ignored; your feedback has a huge impact on how we prioritize our work.

To all my china plates back in the UK -- enjoy.

Finance + Gadgets = Fun

2008-01-23T17:14:00.001-08:00

by Geoff Pike, Google Finance 20% Engineer

Inspired by the entertaining and informative Google Finance tab for iGoogle, I created a charting gadget that displays bigger charts with a light dose of technical analysis. I can't claim great knowledge of (or success with) said analysis, but I like to look at moving averages and occasionally other indicators computed from recent price and volume action.

The details: weekly price and volume data come from Google Finance; prices are plotted on a log scale, with 10- and 40-week moving averages; and a "hot/cold" indicator is presented at the bottom of the chart. A security is deemed "hot" if its price was up three straight weeks with increasing volume each week. (Alternately, a security is marked "cold" if it was down for the same interval.) Prices are plotted in blue, with green for the 10-week, and yellow for the 40-week moving averages. This gadget works only on iGoogle.

My gadget is not an official Google gadget -- it's more like a fun experiment. Comments are welcome! Or, if you'd like to write your own charting gadget, take a look at my source code and the Google Chart API documentation.