WebProNews

Here's hoping you're not one of those people who make minute-to-minute stock trades; it's hard to imagine how much blood pressure medication they must consume.  Yet financial nuts and casual investors alike should enjoy Google Finance's new real-time quotes for NASDAQ stocks.

On the Official Google Blog, Matthew Simmons and Katie Jacobs Stanton write, "This is an important (and way overdue) development for everyone who consumes financial information.  Historically, real-time stock data was not freely and widely accessible.  Either buried behind subscription walls or brokerage sites, consumers typically had to live with 15 or 20 minute price delays."

 Real-Time NASDAQ Data

Now, although Simmons and Stanton are right, here are the two catches that come with this breakthrough.  First, when you're dealing with Google Finance and NYSE stocks, you'll still see the word "delayed" and a timestamp that's around 20 minutes old.

Second, even as Google Finance improved, so did similar sites owned by CNBC, the Wall Street Journal, Barron's, and MarketWatch.  The NASDAQ OMX Group is offering free, real-time quote access through all of these entities.

What happened today isn't much of a game-changer for Google, then, but it is a nice touch.  Just try not to get too agitated when you're tracking the market's ups and (mostly) downs.