Google Finance Means Business

Is it OK to like Google(GOOG Quote) Finance now?

The question seems reasonable enough given the pooh-poohing the search giant's financial information site received when it was unveiled in its nascent form nearly a year ago.

Then last week, as tends to happen with adolescence, a few pimply but just-maybe alluring features began to pop up. And a subtle, irreverent and seductive thought rippled through the collective conscious of online investors: Maybe, just maybe, Google Finance will give Yahoo!(YHOO Quote) Finance a run for its money.

That, of course, is completely crazy. Since it emerged from its shell a decade ago, Yahoo! Finance has been the all-in-one stock site. There's nothing new in Google Finance that suggests Yahoo! Finance won't remain the leader in this area for some time.

However, Google is providing more and more reasons for investors to spend more time on its domain than on Yahoo!'s. And that's no small feat, considering the stranglehold that site has held on stock market information for nearly a decade.

But thousands of daytraders sat upright in their chairs last week when they saw they could chart after-market prices in historical charts. After the NYSE or Nasdaq closed for the day, the peripatetic paths of stocks and overseas exchange-traded funds could finally be tracked by the investor, whether hopeful or terrified.

This, as they say, is huge.