A number of web sites have been offering free stock quotes for years. But they've always been delayed by about 15 minutes or so. While 15 minutes doesn't sound like a lot, if you've dumped a lot of money into one stock and it's tanking, you want to know as soon as possible. The solution has been to sign up for subscription-based services like E*Trade.

Now it looks like you can save your money. A whole slew of companies including Google, Yahoo!, CNBC, and the Wall Street Journal have announced the availability of real-time stock quotes. For free.

Yahoo! has partnered with BATS, while a slew of other companies have partnered with NASDAQ to provide the up to the minute stock quotes.

[via paidContent]