Dear Google Finance,
I’m leaving you. I really thought we could have been something but after the changes that you’ve gone through, I don’t think we can ever again have what we had before. While it makes me sad to be leaving you, I really think it’s for the best.
For what it’s worth… Yes, I’m going back to my old partner, Yahoo! Finance. When you stepped up on the scene, I was excited with all the glitz and glamour and obviously wanted to be associated with all of the other fancy members of your family but I never forgot about my last love. I’m sorry that it needs to be this way but here’s why:
You’re a loser
You had a massive opportunity. At one point, I thought you could have upgraded your offering to compete with incumbent market data providers. Basically, you and your family had the resources and access to the skills that would have allowed you to compete with and take market share from Bloomberg and Reuters. You could have really been someone like that Michael Bloomberg instead of disintegrating into what is effectively going to be a muddy backwater of the internet.
You had so much potential, you could have offered the same chat capabilities as well as quotes in different asset classes that the incumbents offer. You could have offered similar portfolio management or valuation tools and integrated your already extensive reach in news networks into the platform to provide additional insights. But you didn’t you’ve squandered your opportunities and our future.
For someone that claims to know everything, you don’t know much about finance
Looking at the more technical elements that you could have offered, the multiples displayed in the fundamental analysis are typically out of date or unadjusted, making them largely meaningless for screening or comparison purposes. You could include valuation tools and scenario analysis for stocks to create a more comprehensive product. Hell, you could even add a platform that allowed investors to do some simple big data or trend analysis through utilising some of the other products that your family is responsible for. Frankly, it’s just weak. You claim to want to organise the world’s information but you’re not touching the financial world, which is actually the only world that matters to the Masters of the Universe.
Where’d the portfolio go?
Previously, the portfolio tools were limited. Now they’re non-existent. You could have a rich portfolio dashboard that could pull in multiple inputs to look at derivatives and other securities that my new lover doesn’t have access to but you can’t even do that well. You could have portfolios that take into consideration simulations, regression and factor analysis. All of which would give investors more insight into what’s happening in their portfolios. Instead of doing that, you just sit around and wallow in self-pity, it’s unbecoming and not something that I want to be around.
What’s the chat?
Your family has managed to create chatbots that can converse without the other person realising that they’re talking to a robot. While platforms have historically been sticky because of the chat offerings. That is becoming less so with Reuters partnering with Symphony (and what a couple they make). Why couldn’t you or your family apply the skills you have to provide a Hangout style alternative to the chat that the other platforms are able to offer. You could sift through the Hangouts to make sure people aren’t doing anything unethical and provide historical reports that people could easily search through. Surely, you could go full Minority Report on the traders that are even considering committing unethical behaviour in your rooms. But again, you floundered, spent your days at the Go board gambling away when you could have become something.
For someone that wants to give the world access to information, you could do better
For someone who is trying to provide the world with access to data, you could do a hell of a lot better when it comes to real-time stock quotes. Exchanges typically implement tiered pricing schedules, meaning that most retail traders won’t have access to real-time data, unless they want to check out my new sweet piece of ass — Yahoo! Finance. You could have really picked up the ball and run with it here. Instead you turned your face and ran the other way.
Don’t even get me started on how easily you could have disrupted the antiquated fixed income market if you actually wanted to provide a platform that could have potentially competed with the other institutional offerings. The pricing in fixed income is beyond obscure for most, allowing the market maker to gauge participants. While this might not appear to be an immediate benefit to society at large, it’s going to help people saving and investing for their retirement in a large way. You could have been the good guy and swooped in to save them a few dollars. Instead you’re spending your time building emails that create themselves.
Goodbye and Farewell
When we got together, I thought it could have been forever. I was wrong. You’ve deteriorated and are now just a fraction of what you could have been. Like I’ve said before, you could have been so much more than you are now, more than that verifiable love boat that I’m sailing back to, but you’ve changed and it’s not for the better. At the current rate, you’ll likely drift off into obscenity.
Sadly,
An ex-Google Finance User
