Crystal and I have a new financial advisor and he is teaching us to be more involved in our retirement planning, which means paying more attention to the market.  So occasionally I need to check the market when I away from my computer and I have found an easy way to do it with text messaging.

Google has a feature called Google SMS.  It allows you to text Google with an information request and Google will text you back with the information.  While with Google with SMS you can get anything from weather reports to directions, I want to talk about how to check market prices.

The process is fairly simple.  Just text 466453 with stock and the stock ticker simple.  An example would be texting  stock goog and you will receive back a text message with the price of Google stock.

Examples of common indexes would be

stock dji for the Dow Jones Industrial Average

stock inx for the S&P 500 Index

stock comp for the NASDAQ Composite

More information can be found at http://www.google.com/mobile/products/sms.html#p=default Please remember normal text messaging and data rates may apply.