Google Finance adds oodles of options

Posted by Philip Brittan, Director of Product Management

Buy! Sell! Hold! That’s stock trading 101. But sometimes investing isn’t as simple as just buying or selling shares of a stock or mutual funds. More sophisticated stock watchers also want to have the choice, but not the obligation, to purchase or sell a security before a certain time and for a specific amount of money. Yes, it’s nice to have options...



In fact, according to the feedback we’ve collected in our Help Center, options data is among the most requested features users ask for each month. So we’re making options information available to all Google Finance users globally. To find options data on a specific company, search for the company’s name on http://www.google.com/finance. You’ll see a new link to the Option chain in the left navigation bar, which will display the complete option chain for the closest expiration month from today. You can change the expiration date by choosing from the ‘View options by expiration’ dropdown. Here’s a sample option chain for Cisco Systems with an expiration of July 17, 2010:

If you’d prefer to see just the Calls or Puts for the company selected, click on the ‘+’ or ‘-’ beside the table. You can also view the tables straddled side by side. For more information on understanding option chain data, visit our Help Center



We hope you find option chain data helpful as you use Google Finance. If you’ve got feedback on this or other topics, please share it on our survey or visit Product Ideas where you can share and vote on ideas.



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