Middle Market Deals and how to buy, sell and raise capital from $5 to $500 million

Google just launched its Google Finance pages.  I thought, as this is a finance oriented blog, that I should give you my first impressions.

The coolest thing, and I do mean "cool," is the charting that integrates news links.  So you can click on an icon on the chart to see what news had been released around the time of the news event.

Looking at Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) chart, you can click on a link that takes you straight to the news released at the time.  So, you can see the release that led to a big slide, as when Google dropped almost 20% over several days after the company announced disappointing results.

The page for a company also features a list of related companies, like, in the case of Google, Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO), Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), with stock quotes for each and links, of course, to their respective Google finance pages.

In addition to the standard news links, the Google Finance pages also pick up links to relevant blog posts and to discussion boards, reflecting the interactive nature of the rapidly developing web 2.0. 

The current portfolio tracking feature, however is rudimentary.  I would have hoped for better.  The MSN portfolio feature remains the standard among web-based portfolio trackers.

The other thing I couldn't find was a stock screener.  It is of relatively little use to only research the stocks you already know--and therefore need to research the least.  It is of most use to be able to find stocks you might like because they meet certain key criteria.

In any event, I expect great things from Google Finance.  We'll see, won't we?