An official Windows Phone 8 app for the MarketWatch financial news and information website was published today, according to a blog post on the Windows Phone Blog. The MarketWatch app provides easy access to real-time market data and quotes, breaking financial and business news, and feature guides and articles related to investment advice.

The big draw of the MarketWatch app is the quality of the news reporting on offer. MarketWatch is a subsidiary of Dow Jones, which itself a property of the News Corporation. The Dow Jones Group includes Baron's, The Wall Street Journal, and WSJ.com, which gives an indication of the websites resources and pedigree. There's a large amount of content on offer within the app, but this is made easier to handle by the built in, and customisable, Watchlist functionality, which allows users to track stocks of their choice and get shortcuts to related stories.

Platform integration features in the app include voice commands for U.S. English users (e.g. tell your phone to read the latest MarketWatch headlines), lock screen integration, and a Live Tile that shows the latest news headline.

Overall performance of the MarketWatch app is excellent and it easy to see why Microsoft has chosen to highlight this as an app addition to Windows Phone in the week of its //build/ developer conference. Not only does it make good use of Windows Phone's platform specific features, it also has a design that use the principles of Modern design to deliver a high density of information in a highly effective manner.

Windows Phone Store description:

The MarketWatch Windows phone app delivers real-time market data and quotes, breaking markets and business news and analysis, and investing advice throughout the day.

Features:

• Latest markets, finance and business news from MarketWatch
• Market data center updated in real time
• Detailed stock quote pages with key trading information and charts
• Speech recognition for hands-free listening: tell your Windows phone to read you the latest MarketWatch headlines and stories, news on a company, or the latest quote for a stock
• Customizable Watchlist – track your stocks and see related MarketWatch stories
• Save and share articles

MarketWatch is a free download from the Windows Phone Store.