Google free real-time stock quotes
Previously, Google had a delayed update for their stock prices (15 minutes I believe). That change enabled users of Google Finance to see updates to stock prices in real-time.
"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://www.businessinsider.com/rest-and-vest-millionaire-engineers-who-barely-work-silicon-valley-2017-7) reduced by 96%. (I'm a bot) ***** &gt; OGs refer to engineers who worked at the company before the IPO. &amp;quot;Their Facebook stock quadruples and they don&amp;#039;t leave. They are really good engineers, really indispensable. And then they start to pull 9-5 days,&amp;quot; this person said.  &gt; Facebook declined to comment but several engineers told us that Facebook has a reputation of requiring long hours from their engineers.  &gt; &amp;quot;Most of my friends at Google work four hours a day. They are senior engineers and don&amp;#039;t work hard. They know the Google system, know when to kick into gear. They are engineers, so they optimized the performance cycles of their own jobs,&amp;quot; one engineer described.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6s69a6/inside_the_world_of_silicon_valleys_coasters_the/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~185383 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **engineer**^#1 **work**^#2 **company**^#3 **vest**^#4 **Google**^#5" "Market cap is speculative value, M = P * W, where W is stock (or other way of owning) percentage of ownership, P - price of percentage of ownership. This could include ""outside of exchange"" deals. Some funds could buy ownership percentage directly via partial ownership deal. That ownership is not stock, but fixed-type which has value too. Stock market cap is speculative value, M2 = Q * D, where D is free stocks available freely, Q - price of stock, in other words Quote number (not price of ownership). Many stock types do NOT provide actual percentage of ownership, being just another type of bond with non-fixed coupon and non-fixed price. Though such stocks do not add to company's capitalization after sold to markets, it adds to market capitalization at the moment of selling via initial price." "There is more than one exchange where stock can be traded.   For example, there is the New York Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange.  In fact, if you look at all the exchanges, there is essentially continuous trading 24/7 for many financial instruments (eg US government bonds). The closing price quoted in papers is usually the price at the close on the NYSE.  However, options close after that and so there is after-the-close trading in many stocks with active options, so the price at the close of options trading at CBOE is often used. The ""real"" price is always changing.  But for the purpose of discussion, using the closing price in NYSE (for NYSE listed stocks) is pretty standard and unlikely to be questioned.  Likewise, using Bloomberg's price makes sense. Using some after-hours or small market quote could lead to differences with commonly accepted numbers - until tomorrow :)" If you're looking to invest using stocks and shares, I recommend you set up an account at something like Google Finance - it is free and user-friendly with lots of online help. You can set up some 'virtual cash' and put it into a number of stocks which it'll track for you. Review your progress and close some positions and open others as often as you want, but remember to enter some figure for the cost of the transaction, say $19.95 for a trade, to discourage you from high-frequency trading. Take it as seriously as you want - if you stick to your original cash input, you'll see real results. If you throw in more virtual cash than you could in real life, it'll muddle the outcome. After some evaluation period, say 3 months, look back at your progress. You will learn a tremendous amount from doing this and don't need to have read any books or spent any money to get started. Knowing which stocks to pick and when to buy or sell is much more subtle - see other answers for suggestions. Price for the latest transaction. If the stock is selling for  $898.7 means that the stock is currently trading for  $898.7, and it will be your ask price of stock if you purchase currently. Yup. What I wanted to know was where they are pulling it up from. Have casually used Google finance for personal investments, but they suck at corp actions. Not sure if they provide free APIs, but that would probably suck too! :D Generally Google gets their data,  directly from the exchanges (Nasdaq, NYSE). This is really expensive   -- tens of thousands of dollars a month just for the license from the exchange, and lots of telecom costs on top of that. The (assets - liabilities)/#shares of a company is its book value, and that number is included in their reports. It's easy for a fund to release the net asset value on a daily basis because all of its assets (stocks, bonds, and cash) are given values every day by the market.  It's  also necessary to have a real time value for a fund as it will be bought and sold every day. A company can't really do the same thing as it will have much more diverse assets - real estate, cars, inventory, goodwill, etc.  The real time value of those assets doesn't have the same meaning as a fund; those assets are used to earn cash, while a fund's business is only to maximize its net asset value.