A Free Service Whose Time Has Come
Getting real-time stock quotes on the Internet used to be so expensive that they were out of reach for most amateur investors.
Now, there are many more options for investors who want and/or need to know precisely where a stock is trading at any moment. And given the extreme intra-day volatility in the market, having access to real-time quotes can be critical for investors looking to buy, sell or merely track their portfolios.
“You’re at an immediate disadvantage not to have real-time quotes,” said Edward J. Nicoll, chief executive of Datek Online Holdings Corp. “It’s gotten to the point now where every customer should regard them as an absolute bedrock necessity.”
Many investors may not realize it, but the quotes they see on many financial Web sites today aren’t real-time. Rather, they’re delayed 15 to 20 minutes--which can be an eternity in a hyperactive market where prices can gyrate wildly from one minute to the next.
In the past, anyone wanting real-time numbers had to pay hefty monthly fees, in part because the Web sites themselves had to buy the data from the New York Stock Exchange or the Nasdaq Stock Market.
Nowadays, however, the intense competition for eyeballs is causing a growing number of Web sites to offer real-time numbers at no charge.
The first stop for online traders seeking up-to-the-minute quotes should be their brokerage firm’s Web site. Most online brokers give free real-time quotes to their own customers.
Some firms, such as National Discount Brokers, give unlimited quotes. But others have monthly “quote banks” that limit the number of quotes that are available without tacking on charges.
At Charles Schwab, for example, customers with less than $100,000 in assets or who make fewer than 12 trades a year are capped at 100 free quotes per month. They can exceed that number without a charge when checking prices of stocks they already own, and they can earn extra quotes for certain transactions, such as making a trade online. But if they exceed their monthly limit, they incur a fee when checking real-time prices of stocks they don’t own.
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There are two types of real-time quotes available on Web sites: snapshot quotes, and dynamically updating quotes.
A snapshot quote typically lists the last price at which a stock traded, after you type in the ticker symbol and send in your request.
Several popular sites, including Microsoft’s MSN Money Central (https://www.moneycentral.com) and Thomson Investors Network (https://www.thomsonrtq.com), serve up snapshot quotes to anyone who registers on their sites.
The sites also normally provide ancillary price data. FreeRealTime (https://www.freerealtime.com), for example, lists the last sale price as well as data such as the current best “bid” and “ask” prices for the stock, daily trading volume and average order size.
Web sites say investors’ use of real-time quotes is increasing rapidly. Usage is up 58% in the last six months at MoneyCentral, while 2-year-old FreeRealTime has 932,000 members and is adding about 3,600 people per day, said Brad Gunn, its co-chief executive.
Snapshot quotes are fine as far as they go. But they’re of limited use for active traders, who must keep a constant eye on the prices of stocks they own or are thinking of buying.
The main problem with snapshot quotes: They require that an investor reenter a ticker symbol and hit the command or “go” button to refresh a stock quote--which can be a tiring exercise and a cumbersome way to watch the latest action in a stock.
To address that shortcoming, some Web sites offer dynamically updating real-time quotes. That means the quote on your computer screen automatically updates by the second as the price of the stock fluctuates.
For a fast-moving stock, such as America Online or Yahoo, prices can change second by second. Dynamically updated quotes allow you to see each trade as it crosses the “tape.” A screen full of dynamically updating quotes thus will be filled with blinking numbers in an active market.
However, many of the Web sites offering dynamically updating quotes charge for them. FreeRealTime, for example, hopes some members using its snapshot quotes will segue to a companion site--Bull Session (https://www.bullsession.com)--that charges from $25.95 to $36.95 a month for “streaming” quotes.
Streaming quotes don’t float across a computer screen the way they do on CNBC. Rather, the term simply refers to columns of stock quotes on the screen whose prices change without the computer user having to hit a button. The data are fed directly from the market to your screen.
Datek Online offers randomly updating quotes free to non-customers at its Web site (https://www.datek.com). Once investors register for its Streamer service, they can get free streaming quotes on up to 40 stocks at a time.
Datek is betting that customers will like the service and open brokerage accounts.
(For employees checking stocks from work, Streamer appears able to come through most corporate firewalls protecting in-house systems. But you may have to check with your computer people.)
Aggressive stock traders might consider UltimateTrader Free from A.B. Watley (https://www.abwatley.com), a New York-based brokerage firm.
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A step beyond streaming quotes, UltimateTrader offers a range of sophisticated trading information. It includes so-called Level II stock trading screens, which are used by professionals to monitor real-time trading patterns in Nasdaq stocks.
Level II displays such information as the range of prices that big Wall Street firms and other investors are bidding, or asking, for individual Nasdaq stocks at any given moment. Also shown are the sizes of the orders major investors are willing to trade at particular prices.
In addition, prices of recent trades are displayed, along with the share volume for each trade.
Besides Level II information, UltimateTrader offers stock charts so investors can easily monitor the intra-day trading of a stock with a quick glance.
To get UltimateTrader, investors must have an A.B. Watley account worth at least $10,000 in cash or securities. But there is no specific cost for the data feed, and there is no minimum trading requirement. Trading commissions start at $23.95 and drop based on an investor’s trading volume.
There is a potential downside, though: Because of the crush of data involved in UltimateTrader, investors trying to use the service from work may have a problem getting it through a corporate firewall unless their company agrees to make an exception.
UltimateTrader is certainly too advanced for casual investors who occasionally check their stock quotes during the day. But for more active traders who trade from home and want advanced data at a minimal cost, it’s worth checking out.
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Times staff writer Walter Hamilton can be reached by e-mail at walter.hamilton@latimes.com
