Google Spreadsheets and Finance

March 30th, 2007

Here’s something I didn’t know about Google Spreadsheets — you can embed live financial data straight from Google Finance.

Check it out. Here’s a spreadsheet I created that lists 3 ticker symbols. In the yellow boxes, there’s a function called GoogleFinance that calculates the P/E ratio of the symbol in the adjacent cell:

And yes, it’s self-updating. Every 20 minutes.

There are other attributes you can look up on stocks, like price, Beta, market cap, earnings per share, among others. And for mutual funds there’s YTD return, Morningstar rating, and yes even more. Here’s the full list.

The last time I saw something like this, it was available as an Excel macro from Capital IQ, but only if you shelled out cash for a $10,000 subscription. Even a Cap IQ student subscription doesn’t get you the macro (I know because I have one).

Indeed, way cool.

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