Google Finance has new Layout and Features

Whenever I am considering buying or selling a stock, ETF, or mutual fund, I do quite a bit of research first. The main 2 sites I use for my personal research are Google Finance and Yahoo Finance. They both had their positives and negatives, and if used together, in my opinion, made the perfect research vehicle.

Today when I woke up, I found that Google has redone it's finance page. At first it took me a few minutes to adjust to the new layout, and understand some of the new features they offer, but overall I think this will probably weigh in favor of Google over Yahoo. Here are some of the things that Google has changed about their finance site:

1. The main page is now more streamlined. All the news is in the center in a straight line configuration. Now they show both the market news and your portfolio news under that, instead of using tabs to have to change between the two. On the left side bar lists the stocks you have recently looked up, and on the right your portfolio. There is also a mroe prominant link to the Google Stock screener which I find an amazing tool.
2. Each individual stock page is now layed out differently. The navigational links as well as your last view stocks are still on the left sidebar, while on the right hand sidebar at top is a mini graph showing what the stock, it's setor, the DOW and NASDAQ have doen for the day. The layout also makes it easier to use the technical graphs that I love, which Google provides for free.

There may be some more changes that Google could, and likely will make to make navigation a bit smoother, but overall, these are positive changes for people who need to find and rely on information as quickly and accurately as possible.