Key Features of Google Finance (EDGR, GOOG, MORN, TSCM, YHOO)

After much speculation, Google (GOOG) this morning launched Google Finance. Google Finance differs from Yahoo Finance in three crucial respects:

First, it attempts to present most information about a stock on a single page. Second, it leverages the breadth of external sources from Google News. Third, in contrast to Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) which is investing in its own content (particularly in personal finance), Google Finance is built entirely of licensensed data and links to external sources. Here are the key points about the product (evaluation and stock impact will follow in a later post):

Google Finance is built from two types of sources -- those that Google is licensing and providing direct to users, and those that Google links to.

Directly provided data include:

1. Interactive charts. News events are highlighted on the charts, with links to related news articles appearing alongside. Mousing over a chart provides historical stock price and volume. The integration of news and charts is not entirely successful. Look at the news stories that "explain" the TSCM chart, for example. They're largely a set of promotional stories by TheStreet.com itself. Note that Yahoo! Finance manager Peggy White already stated in an interview with Forbes that Yahoo is soon to launch interactive charts.
2. Management team bios with brief descriptions and photos, plus links to external data on compensation (from Reuters) and trading in the company's stock (from Yahoo Finance).
3. Range of other licensed data from third-party providers, including Hoover's, Morningstar (MORN) and Reuters Group. Most financial data seems to come from Reuters.
4. Portfolio tracking. Users can enter their stock portfolios to track them.

Information Google links to includes:

1. Blogs. Google Finance includes blog posts relevant to the company in question. But Google hasn't used it's blog search, so the blog results on Google finance differ from a ticker search using Google Blog Search. Compare the blog headlines for "GOOG" on Google Finance, for example, with a Google Blog Search for "GOOG".
2. Google Groups. Google Groups will become the basis of stock-related discussion. For many stocks, a Google Group doesn't yet exist. According to Forbes, Google "has hired an unspecified amount of message-board moderators with experience in customer support or online communities to make sure the boards remain on topic and to keep them free of spam."
3. Analyst Estimates from TheStreet.com Inc. (TSCM).
4. SEC Filings from Edgar Online (EDGR).
5. "About the company" from Wikipedia.
6. Research Reports and Comparison Charts from Yahoo Finance.
7. Options info from MarketWatch, which is owned by Dow Jones (DJ).

Comments

[SeekingAlphaEditors]

Nice to see Google roll out a beta product that's more ripe than Base and Video were.

Some other things to note:

- Tickers: you can enter a company's name for results, without knowing the ticker symbol (Yahoo makes you search for the ticker, which is annoying)

- News: the timing of the news items mapped onto the chart.. I suppose this is to help one understand why the stock moved at a certain time, but I'm not sure it will work. David points out one clear failure. Also, just as the blog results on Google Finance aren't the same as the Google Blog Search results for that ticker, the Google News results differ as well. They apparently have another filter on those results.

- Great use of Ajax to render certain elements quickly without requiring click-through -- for example, management profiles.

[kef]

Yahoo are owned mainly by Mafia, I'm surprised anyone wants them. endmafia.com