Finance

If you've had bold ambitions of becoming a day trader, Google Finance is now one step closer to getting you there.

Tuesday morning the New York Stock Exchange partnered with Google and CNBC to provide real-time stock quotes that will show up on Google's finance site.

This means that whatever symbols you're looking at on Google Finance will be updated without delay, and the changes can be seen both on the page and at the top of the tab it's open in on your browser. You can also get it in widget form, either in iGoogle … Read more

SunRun, a company that offers solar-electricity financing, announced Tuesday that it has raised $12 million from Foundation Capital.

The San Francisco-based start-up is one of handful of new companies looking to make solar panels an easier purchase for consumers through financing.

Solar electric panels have a hefty up-front cost--between $20,000 and $35,000-- depending on the size, before rebates.

Although buyers will generally recoup the initial outlay in lower electricity bills in about 15 years, the high cost has restricted solar electricity to a niche audience, say solar industry executives.

Rather than buy the panels, SunRun customers buy the … Read more

NEW YORK--Economic and policy problems have placed a few potholes in front of the fast-growing clean-technology business.

Forecasts for clean-technology adoption all point upward these days, buoyed by high double digits growth rates in sectors like wind and solar power over the past several years.

But a panel of financial experts here at the Renewable Energy Finance Forum on Thursday detailed several challenges to scaling clean technologies beyond their current niche status of about 2 percent of energy in the U.S.

"The fundamental drivers have never been better," said Michael Liebreich, the CEO of New Energy Finance. &… Read more

Here's a tip for East Coast geeks who are gearing up for this week's Internet Week New York: Make a schedule. And leave room for last-minute additions.

The first citywide tribute to the Web revolution, sanctioned by the office of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and set to run June 3-10, isn't a cohesive weeklong event, nor is it a central nucleus with satellite events like the South by Southwest Interactive Festival or the city's own biannual Fashion Week. There are a few anchors like the Webby Awards ceremony, the Advertising 2.0 conference, and Federated Media's … Read more

Update 1:15 p.m. PT: I added information about the addition of real-time quotes on Yahoo Finance.

Real-time stock trading data aren't easy to come by on the Internet, but Google, CNBC, and The Wall Street Journal now can show real-time Nasdaq stock prices on their Web sites, the companies announced Monday.

Previously, the Nasdaq data had been available only with a 15-minute lag on the sites.

"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," said Adena … Read more

Glam Media has always been adamant that it's not just another ad network, something it reiterated when it announced a revenue-sharing video platform for its member sites this week.

But apparently, some big company really thinks that Glam's something special. Amid the gossipy deal making of the D6 Conference, someone at tech money blog VentureBeat heard that Glam had just received a $1.3 billion acquisition offer that it plans to turn down.

The reason it plans to shug off the offer, according to VentureBeat, is that Glam's investors--which include Accel Partners and Hubert Burda Media--&… Read more

Financing company MMA Renewable Ventures is branching into wind energy, betting places like family farms are underserved.

The company on Wednesday is expected to announce the launch of its wind business, which will provide financing and project management for installations between 10 megawatts and 50 megawatts.

Its first customer is a planned 10-megawatt project, the PaTu Wind Farm in Oregon, which is expected to go up by 2009. MMA Renewable has a pipeline of deals worth 200 megawatts, said Moira Geraghty, vice president of wind finance at MMA Renewable Ventures.

In general, the deals will be structured so that MMA … Read more

The personal finance Web application Mint is adding investment tracking, making it a more well rounded service for people with moderately complex financial situations, as opposed to people who care solely about cash flow.

(See initial review: Mint: Solid but incomplete online personal finance.)

As it does with cash and credit accounts, the investment feature connects to your online accounts and reads in the data from them. You can get historical data only as far back as your brokerage site will provide it. However, there's no capability to enter in your historical data (like purchase date and cost) for … Read more

Joseph Brakohiapa is thrilled to hear about how scientists are making solar cells more efficient at converting light to electricity. But he'd much rather be making a sale of solar panels.

Brakohiapa is the CEO of Clean Power Finance, one of a growing number of young companies that are spending their brain power on software and financing, rather than photovoltaics.

On Friday, his company announced a deal with German solar panel manufacturer Conergy, which will recommend Clean Power Finance's Web-based software tools and financing options to Conergy's network of distributors in the U.S.

Clean Power Finance … Read more