by PC Magazine Staff

The NASDAQ exchange said Monday that it began offering real-time quotes to traders via a collection of partners, including Google and CNBC .

The quotes will be free on Google Finance, according to Matthew Simmons, a Google "market data gnome," in a blog post.

Typically, quotes are delayed by several minutes in free services like Google, with only for-pay services offering the real-time quotes that brokerages are privy to. The delay can mean that smaller invetors can't react as quickly to trends in a stock price, costing them money.

"This is an important, and in many ways, overdue development in the U.S. securities markets," stated Adena Friedman, Executive Vice President, NASDAQ OMX, in a statement. "With universal access to the Internet and the real-time nature of the web, investors need real time data, and now they don't have to pay for it, thanks to CNBC, Google, The Wall Street Journal Digital Network and Xignite."

Google characterized the program as a pilot. "It's important to have up-to-date market data," Simmons said. "It's equally important that that data stay up to date. Consequently, we're enabling the streaming of quotes across Google Finance. Prices will update automatically, once per second, to reflect current market conditions.