Google's currency conversion added support for bitcoin, a virtual currency introduced in 2009. If you search for [1 bitcoin to usd], [1 BTC in USD], [bitcoin eur], [convert 1000 gbp to bitcoin] and other similar queries, Google shows the interactive currency conversion card that also includes a historical chart.

Last month, "Google Finance partnered with Coinbase to launch a bitcoin price tracker that enabled BTC-to-fiat price conversions across a wide range of global currencies." This update uses the same data.


"Bitcoin is often referred to as a currency, but it does not conform to widely used definitions of money," suggests Wikipedia. "Economists generally agree that to qualify as money, something must be a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a unit of account. Bitcoin has some way to go if it wants to meet these criteria. It does best as a medium of exchange."

{ via Search Engine Land }

Google's stock card that's displayed when you search for [GOOG], [TSLA], [Microsoft stock] and other similar queries is now a lot bigger. Tabs are placed above the chart and you can get the stock price at any time by mousing over the chart or tapping it.


Drag the dotted line to get the price variation.


Another change is that the links to Google Finance, Yahoo Finance and MSN Money have been removed.

{ Thanks, Jérôme. }

Google experiments with displaying a search box next to sites like Google Finance, Yahoo Finance, Reuters. There's a button with the following label: "get quotes" and you're supposed to use this feature if you want to search for share prices.

For example, when you type [Google] or [GOOG], you're sent to the right page from Google Finance, Yahoo Finance and other financial sites. If you search for [computers], you'll get a search results page from the financial site. Is this the first time when Google shows a search box and doesn't return its own results?



I checked the source page and it says that it's a rich snippet, just like those that are used for reviews, music, events, products.

{ via Rubén }

Google Finance has a very cool new feature that lets you plot the items from a feed on a stock chart. For example, you may want to find more information about Google's stock and see how it correlates with the latest news about Google. In addition to the articles from Google News, there's a new tab with blog posts and another one that lets you view the posts from a feed. You can choose from the examples offered by Google, enter the URL of a feed or type some keywords related to the feed you want to find.

For Google, you may select New York Times feed offered as an example, search for [Google blog] or enter the address of this blog: googlesystem.blogspot.com. Google Finance lets you filter the posts from the selected feed using the "search within items" option. There's even an interesting trick that lets you plot some custom events on the chart. "Google Spreadsheets can be treated as RSS feeds and plotted on a chart. Just make sure your document contains a date column and some basic formatting, and that it's published to the web." Here's an example of spreadsheet plotted in Google Finance.


If you want to obtain a permalink for your custom chart, click on "Link to chart" and copy the address. Unfortunately, you can't save a list of feeds or connect them with certain companies.

{ Thank you, Alexis K. }

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.

Find the perfect stocks for your portfolio with the new stock screener from Google Finance. You can use criteria like: market capitalization, the P/E ratio, the most recently reported trade price, gross margin and select the values interactively.

Brain Lint notes that Google uses sparklines, "miniature graphs that go inline with text. In this case the graph is a histogram that indicates how much of the stock market falls into each part of the range - this will give one a quick preview how inclusive their search parameters are."

It looks much better than the stock screener from Yahoo Finance, which is anything but intuitive. Even if it looks outdated, Yahoo Finance has more features and content, so its user base won't migrate to Google Finance for the vivid charts and the clever integration of news headlines.


{ Spotted last month, when it was not functional. }

Google Finance lets you subscribe to more information about a company. There's a new RSS feed for news, a calendar with all the conferences and other important events, the option to view and export the historical prices for a stock.

A more useful new feature is a calendar with all the important events for the companies included into your portfolio. There's no feed for news in the portfolio section, though.

Google Finance will eventually add sections for all the links from "more resources", managing to mix the best information from other financial sites with its services.

{ Thank you, Mike. }

Google found a way to promote the not very popular Google Finance: link to it everytime it may be useful to find more about a company. After adding a Plus Box in the search results, Google News shows the tickers for companies mentioned in news articles.

In a recent Q&A, the product manager of Google Finance said that "Google Finance is most different from others in its approach to search. We've tried to make searching for financial information as easy as possible so you can search by public or private company by name or ticker, mutual funds, etf's, even by product or management name. We do other things differently, too, but I think search is the biggest differentiator."

Google Finance seems more like an add-on for search results than a destination for financial information.

Remember the ManyBox (or Plus Box) that shows up next to Google search results that are connected to a physical location, like a local business or an organization? "What Plus Box?", you'll ask me. Well, this one:


Google tests a new Plus Box for stock quotes. If a site is connected to a business listed on a stock exchange, you'll see a link that says: "stock quote for GOOG", for example. If you expand the box, you'll get information from Google Finance about the stock and the company.


Unlike the OneBox results that show up at the top of the search results or at the bottom of the page, Plus Boxes are connected to individual search results and give more information about the context of the site. We can expect to see more expandable boxes in the months to come.

{ Via Vygantas Lipskas. }

Google Finance has been updated. The homepage shows new information: sector summary, better market summary, top gainers and losers.

"On the Google Finance homepage you can see at a glance how major sectors are currently performing in U.S. financial markets. Scrolling over the bar charts will show you more detailed information about percentage increases and decreases for a given sector. To learn more about a given sector, simply click on the name and you'll see how that particular sector is performing compared to the S&P 500."

Google seems to have problems with homepages for services like Google News, Google Finance, that don't have enough content to make people coming.



Update: Octavian Costache (also known as Vivi) tells the story in a funny video.

Google Finance shows historical data in the charts, so now it's easier to see the evolution of a stock. The earliest year available in Google Finance is 1970 (until this update it was 2001), while Yahoo Finance shows data from 1962.

Google Finance has a new feature. You can add more stocks to a chart and compare their evolution. If the chart shows more than one stock, you won't be able to see related news for each company.



Google wanted to create something as good as the new charts from Yahoo Finance, but didn't really succeed. Yahoo's charts show more information, are easy to print and share, and fit the size of the window, just like Google Video.

Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) launched Google Finance, a product that offers "information about North American stocks, mutual funds and public and private companies along with charts, news and fundamental financial data".

You can search for stocks, mutual funds, public and private companies, find news about companies and even blog posts, see related companies, company summary and management information.


You can create a portfolio, if you have a Google Account. Google Finance portfolios allow you to keep track of financial information, including how many shares you own and at what price, for up to 200 stocks or mutual funds.

But probably the best feature of Google Finance is the interactive charts, that correlate market data with corresponding dated news stories to help you determine if there is a relationship between them.

Of course, the product is far from perfect if you compare it with Yahoo! Finance: it doesn't have real-time quotes, statistics, SEC fillings, list of competitors, analyst estimates, list of major holders, income statements, option to compare stocks and many other features. So I think Google Finance can't be considered real competition for sites like fool.com or finance.yahoo.com. Yet...

Update: Google Blog says that Google Finance "started as a small project led by a few engineers in Bangalore and later joined by more engineers and finance enthusiasts in Mountain View and New York".