why are stock quotes delayed by 15/20 minutes when we see them online
or on television

oxymoronpointer-ga:

The stock quotes you see that are freely available to the public are
delayed on purpose by the relevant exchanges per their own rules:

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NASDAQ.com Frequently Asked Questions

How much lag is involved when accessing your delayed quotes?
Trading information on NASDAQ and OTCBB companies is delayed at least
15 minutes. Trading information on NYSE and AMEX companies is delayed
at least 20 minutes per those exchanges' rules. The Most Active
section is delayed at least 15 minutes for NASDAQ and 20 minutes for
AMEX and NYSE. The NASDAQ Indices and the Major Indices scrolling
ticker are delayed at least 1 minute. Mutual Funds are updated at the
end of each day.

http://www.nasdaq.com/help/helpfaq.stm
(Site and Market Data section, #3)
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The reason for this delay is primarily one of 'home-field advantage'.
The exchanges make the rules, and therefore can establish different
performance levels to match up with different pricing levels for quote
information.

If you refer to this report to Congress on the Securities Exchange
Commission website, you will see reference to this:

Report to the Congress: The Impact of Recent Technological Advances on
the Securities Markets
http://www.sec.gov/news/studies/techrp97.htm

If you search for the word "delay" and go to the second occurrence, in
III.C.4.c "Pricing Services", you will see it discussed. Basically,
the delay on the basic quote service creates a market for a real-time
quote service that some parties will pay a premium for.

I hope this helps!

Regards,

aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher

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Request for Answer Clarification by oxymoronpointer-ga on 31 Jan 2004 10:20 PST

I see a standard trend of either 15 minutes or 20 minutes. And this is
what puzzles me. Why only these to numbers and nothing else.

Thanks

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Clarification of Answer by aht-ga on 31 Jan 2004 17:56 PST

The trend is, quite simply, a result of the stock exchange rules
mentioned above. The NYSE and AMEX operate under rules that specify
that 'free' stock ticker updates must be delayed by 20 minutes; the
NASDAQ rules specify that 'free' ticker updates for their exchange
must be delayed by 15 minutes.

Television stations and websites that subscribe to this 'free' ticker
update feed, are required to inform their viewers that the values are
delayed values. The easiest way is to simply say "quotes delayed by at
least 15 minutes" for NASDAQ stock symbols, and "quotes delayed by at
least 20 minutes" when displaying quotes for NYSE, AMEX, and NASDAQ
combined. The values of 15 and 20 minutes are set by the exchanges,
and are simply to allow them to sell real-time and less-delayed quote
feeds for a higher price than the 'free' delayed quote feeds. There's
a pretty big business in supplying fast quote feeds, as you can
probably well imagine.

If you are interested in learning more about the history behind this,
you may want to post another Question along the lines of "when did
delayed stock ticker feeds become available from the New York Stock
Exchange?", or "how have stock quote ticker feeds evolved over the
last 100 years?". Please note, though, that such a Question will
require much more research than a typical $2 Question, so you will
need to price it accordingly. Probably only advisable if you have a
deep-rooted interest in this topic!

Hope this helps!

aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher