Real-Time Stock Prices for Free – It’s About Time

Real-time stock prices from the Nasdaq and NYSE are now offered online for free. But seriously, what took them so long? We’re in the 21st Century, has anyone even noticed? You can get nowadays almost anything online for free, just visit our website and increase our traffic, will ya?

Well, some might say that with the SEC involved, it is a surprise that this was approved before the third millennium. But I am not one of them.

Well, is it about time? Apparently, this feature was available in the past on Yahoo! Finance through August 2006. Yahoo! Finance has again announced a partnership with BATS Trading to provide free stock prices online fairly recently – just before the exchanges announced the same thing – RT quotes online for free. Coincidence? Of course not.

The recent announcements by the Nasdaq and the NYSE regarding the partnerships with Google, CNBC and the Wall Street Journal may seem like a “late to the party”, “me too” announcements. However, it was just a matter of days between them, so they must have been working on these partnerships for some time. Also, you must give them some credit for doing it with style. Why get the real-time quotes from a broker, when you can go straight to the source – the exchange itself. That will definitely do it.

Yes. Definitely do a PR fiasco for Google and the other partners, but unclear why the Nasdaq and the NYSE went along with it. They could have done it more gracefully by announcing they plan to offer the quotes under such a partnership, and have interested companies contact them. Because by doing it this way, they have picked one of the sides in the whole Yahoo! Finance/ Google Finance war.

I’m still wondering what ever happened to the real-time quotes Yahoo has offered in the past. What made them stop the service? (and don’t tell me “consolidation in the marketplace and a new pricing structure”. Don’t they want the traffic all to themselves? Or did they not care because they were getting it anyway?)

Yahoo RT Quote

The World’s Food and Commodities Crisis Has Only Just Began

My Aunt who’s in Connecticut said they are limiting the amount of rice you can buy at Cosco. A similar case occurred in a supermarket here in Israel not long ago. Oil prices are surging. China and other producers are restricting the export of grains in order to ensure domestic food supply.

The world has become so needy and accustomed to exhausting energy sources, natural resources and commodities. Even though it is a stretch to say that the living outnumber the dead (the current world population outnumbers the combined historical world populations), however way you compute it. Still, more people are alive today than have ever lived before at any given time.

Therefore, there are far greater considerations as to supply of goods that haven’t been taken into account. 100 million people have already been put in danger by the current situation. We used to think this situation will not affect us. Many people feel that at the western countries, one can always pay more and get what he want. So maybe we will have to pay for food what we do now for gold?

Well, maybe. But maybe the now “poor” countries will realize that their gold is worth them their lives, and simply won’t sell it.

Possible Conclusions: Buy commodities, Live in Asia, Develop alternative energy sources (conserving energy is not nearly enough – we will use it all up sooner or even sooner), stock up on food, what else?