what is real time 
real time is when a system relays information to a user at a speed that is near instantaneous or has a short delay from when the event occurred online brokerages often provide a real time data feed that displays stock quotes and their respective real time changes with a very insignificant lag time so that clients can base their investing decisions on the most up to date information understanding real timewhile many financial websites do offer free stock quotes to the general public many of these feeds are not real time feeds and may be delayed up to 20 minutes therefore when viewing stock quotes from any financial website be aware of the time that is posted near the stock quote to verify whether the quote is actually in real time possessing accurate real time quotes is especially important for traders as even the smallest time discrepancy between a provided quote and the real time situation can change a profitable position into a loss for rapid intra day traders especially it can be critical to get real time quotes instead of delayed quotes real time stock quotes vs delayed stock quotesstock quotes reflect the results of actual trading on stock market exchanges such as the new york stock exchange or nasdaq investors and traders can get quotes on the dow jones industrial average other indices or individual stocks from a number of financial news sources however some financial news services don t report real time information and instead delay stock quotes for 15 or 20 minutes 1the prices of actively traded stocks can fluctuate dramatically from minute to minute or from second to second that s why knowing the current price is imperative in a rapidly rising or falling market also known as a fast market even real time quotes can have a hard time keeping up in that market scenario a quote that s delayed 15 or 20 minutes is virtually useless as a stock s price could have moved by a significant percentage in that time frame delayed quotes are usually enough information for a casual investor who isn t looking to time the market for example if a trader has a long term portfolio of stocks they don t intend to sell they don t need up to the second price information even delayed stock quotes provide a general ballpark of where stocks and indexes are and whether they are trending up or down providing real time quotes takes effort and technology thus this service has a cost if firms don t want to absorb this cost they ll only offer delayed quotes reuters for example provides lots of financial information but its stock quotes are delayed at least 15 minutes 2 financial news services often offer real time quotes as a premium subscription service 