Best stock picking websites 2024

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Best stock picking provider – Market Chameleon

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Top stock picking providers:

As we step into the new year, many investors are looking for the best stocks to invest in. But with the myriad of stocks in the market, it can be quite challenging to identify which ones will yield the most profit.

This is where stock picking services come in. A stock picking service provides investors with real-time stock news and up-to-date stock data, which helps them make informed investment decisions.

There are many such services online, and as an investor, you should find the one that is ideal for you not only in terms of the quality of information it provides but also the performance, affordability costs, among other aspects.

In this article, we will highlight the best stock picking services in 2023, discuss how to choose the best one for you, and in the end, we will answer one question that you probably have in your mind - are stock picking websites worth it?

But before getting into all of that, let us first start by defining what stock picking services are and highlight their pros and cons.

What is a stock picking service?

To understand what a stock picking service is, you should first understand what stock picking is. Stock picking is the process in which an investor or a financial analyst uses proven methods to analyze whether a particular stock is a good investment and if they should add it to their portfolio.

Because this process involves evaluating hundreds of stocks, it can take a lot of time and energy. Many investors therefore prefer using stock picking services to not only save on time, but also to get expert opinions.

A stock picking service will compile extensive stock data, analyze data sets such as the financial statements and market shares, and then suggest to the investors what stocks are profitable and worthy to invest in.

These services are available as either websites where the subscribers have private access, newsletters where the investors get the information via emails or physical mail, or subscriptions to smartphone apps.

There are many advantages of using stock picking services, but there are also some disadvantages that come with it. In the section below, we will discuss some of the pros and cons of stock picking sites.

👍 Pros of Stock Picking Services

Saves investors a lot of time they would have spent stock picking on their own

Helps traders make the best informed investment decisions

Boost portfolio performance in the long term

Helps short-term traders beat the market with the right investments

Offer access to the most recent stock picks and the history of all stocks

👎 Cons of Stock Picking Services

Some services are expensive to gain access to

Some free services do not offer extensive information

Best Stock Picking Services Online

Here are seven best stock picking websites and the features that they offer:

Stock picking service name Top features

Market Chameleon

In-depth options research

Diverse selection of market research tools

One-week free trial

Option to create watchlists for various data points

Historical performance data available

Go to the website

The Trading Analyst

Easy-to-follow real-time alerts

Uses a proven trading strategy

Subscribers can save up to $1,467 by choosing the annual plan

All subscriptions can be canceled anytime

Protected Target Profit Calculation formula

Weekly trading report

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Trade Ideas

AI-powered trade suggestions

Automated trading capabilities

Free live trading room that delivers actionable guidance

In-browser and desktop interface functionality

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Mindful trader

Data driven stock picks

Stock alerts

Stock signals

Stock trading strategies

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Trend spider

Automated Technical Analysis

An accurate strategy tester for users

Multi-Timeframe Analysis Indicators, Drawing and Annotating Charts

Automated trend pattern recognition

Best stock alert service

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Finviz

Large selection of technical and fundamental stock screening criteria

Access to both real-time quotes and pre-market data

Email alerts

Availability of backtesting

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M1 Finance

Extensive Portfolio Management and Customization options

Automated Investing

Low-cost robo-advisor

Fee-free investing

Learn more

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Seeking Alpha

Data-driven, computer-generated stock selection process

Avoids humans bias

Strong backtest performance vs. S&P 500 Index

Competitive price point

Best stock picking providers review

The best stock picking providers are:

Market Chameleon

The Trading Analyst

Trade Ideas

Mindful trader

Trend spider

Finviz

M1 Finance

Seeking Alpha

Market Chameleon

Market Chameleon stands out as a robust options research platform, catering to investors seeking valuable insights for well-informed trading decisions. It boasts a plethora of tools that range from strategies for options trading to in-depth market analyses and efficient stock screening.

A significant feature of Market Chameleon is its dedication to stock research. It equips investors with advanced tools like stock screeners, dividend announcement trackers, and customizable stock watchlists. For those diving deep into options, the platform serves as a treasure trove, offering extensive research into options volume, order flow data, and innovative trading strategies. Moreover, for individuals keeping a close eye on earnings, Market Chameleon ensures they're not left behind with its detailed earnings calendars and tools tailored to dissect earnings data for potential trade opportunities.

To keep its users informed and ahead in the game, the platform sends out insightful newsletters, highlighting the latest in market news and prevailing trends. With a flexible pricing structure, Market Chameleon extends its offerings from a free introductory version to a comprehensive $99 monthly plan that unlocks all its features.

Though it offers an impressive suite of tools, some investors might feel a tad overwhelmed by its interface, which might not be as intuitive as other market platforms. Yet, for those eager to immerse themselves in the intricacies of market data and option strategies, Market Chameleon proves to be an indispensable ally.

The Trading Analyst

The Trading Analyst stands as a top-tier alert service, offering an impressive blend of features without breaking the bank. Its core strategy revolves around swing trading, ensuring that its advice is clear and actionable, even for those who can spare only minimal time for trading.

The Trading Analyst reports a striking profit factor of 2.05. This means successful trades net more than double the losses from those that aren't. If you had heeded their alerts since 2018, you'd be looking at an enviable IRR of 141%, a performance that clearly overshadows the S&P 500. Notably, their insights into options trading can be a boon, especially when markets trend downward.

The annual subscription fee sits at $787, but there are more budget-friendly quarterly and monthly plans available. Given the often steep prices of options trading alert services, this is a competitive offering. Subscribers can expect 2-10 trade alerts weekly, eyeing gains of 50% to 100%. These alerts arrive promptly via SMS, and members also benefit from a real-time portfolio tracker and a rich educational resource.

While The Trading Analyst doesn't provide elaborate screeners or research tools, it targets traders short on research time. They're paying for expertise without the steep costs of a portfolio manager.

Trade Ideas

Trade Ideas provides one of the leading AI trading software widely used today in stock markets. Actually, it is considered among the best stock screeners that any trader can use. How can the AI trading software from Trade Ideas help you?

As you know, there are thousands of stocks trading in the markets every day. Hence, picking the winning stocks can be daunting, difficult, and tedious, especially for inexperienced investors.

However, Trade Ideas gives you an AI-powered stock screener. This software helps you to filter and display specific stocks you seek out. It can give you different parameters, such as earnings and price per share when filtering individual securities.

Trade Ideas' stock screener saves you time and removes behavior and emotion biases. Some features that make it unique include ease of use, breadth of coverage, and depth of analysis. In this context, it can help you uncover investments you would otherwise not have considered.

If you are an active trader, Trade Ideas can be your best companion. Since the stock screener is AI-powered, it can manage superficially unmanageable amounts of data. In other words, it can accomplish what you can't on your own.

Every day, the software uses artificial intelligence to analyze thousands of trading scenarios and determine market relationships with predictable outcomes. In short, it identifies what stocks are up and the ones that are down. With such information, you can decide what to buy and when to exit the deal.

As an established company, Trade Ideas’ stock screener is widely used by leading online brokers.

Some pros of Trade Ideas' stock scanner include pre-defined channels that can look at multiple investments simultaneously and auto-trade capabilities. Further, it has multiple AIs for a wide range of interpretations and unique packages for professional traders. However, the software is expensive and takes time to learn. Also, it has no mobile app, and relying on it too much can override individual decision-making.

Mindful trader

Eric Ferguson runs Mindful Trader, a stock picking service for swing traders. Subscribers to Ferguson's service receive alerts about short-term stocks, options, and futures trades based on backtested strategies.

Eric Ferguson has developed and optimized a custom swing trading strategy for Mindful Trader using backtesting. Pullbacks during an uptrend are the basis of this strategy. A Keltner Channel is particularly useful in identifying stocks that experience a brief dip below a moving average before resuming their upward climb.

Using this strategy, Ferguson trades stocks as well as options. A call option trade is a trade that involves in-the-money options that expire in three to nine days.

Besides trading futures for the S&P 500, Ferguson also trades options. Each of Ferguson's seven backtested futures trading strategies is explained in detail, so traders can copy them.

For day traders interested in learning Ferguson's stock, options, and futures trading strategies and adapting them for their own needs, Mindful Trader can be a useful service.

Trend spider

The TrendSpider analytic platform was launched in 2016, but the present-day website first appeared in 2018. The company has offices in the USA (Austin, Chicago, and Denver), India, Russia, and other countries. TrendSpider is positioned as a technical analysis automation software.

TrendSpider is suitable for all traders regardless of the trading style they prefer: intraday, swing trading, or long-term investing. The basic elements of the interface are charts to which you can add filters and indicators. A trader doesn’t have to find patterns himself as he does in standard trading platform charts. He makes a request and receives analysis results with a prediction.

Expert testing of TrendSpider confirms that the program effectively finds trend lines and patterns. The software can analyze several charts simultaneously and compare them by specified criteria, make historical comparisons, assess different time frames, and instantly test predictions. A user can set guidelines, and as soon as the chart meets them, TrendSpider will send an alert.

Advanced individualization of alerts allows users to get signals right after the automatic testing so that they can instantly react to the best trade entry points. Thus, traders save huge amounts of time. The mobile version is an additional benefit.

The cost of TrendSpider depends on the plan. If you pay for each month separately, the price varies from $39 to $139. If you pay for a year in advance, you get a 16-28% discount. However, to assess the features of this service, you don’t have to pay for a subscription right away. All new clients get free access for 7 days. The features of the trial version correspond to the Premium plan.

Finviz

Finviz.com is a stock screener website that can help traders find the best stocks using dozens of parameters. The website does an outstanding job of condensing a big amount of data into clearly understandable charts and maps.

Each of the tools offered by Finviz is presented in a very graphic, user-friendly manner. Finviz is one of the most widely used stock screens accessible today. Finviz is a financial visualization application that includes a stock screener and trading tool.

Finviz helps traders and investors swiftly filter and locate stocks based on pre-defined criteria, which saves time for professional traders. Users may also utilize the company's tools to obtain a better understanding of what's going on in the industry. This website is also available for free.

M1 Finance

M1 Finance is a broker that provides optimal conditions for long-term investment. The company aims to work with US citizens, regardless of their investment experience. Also, M1 Finance offers solutions for active investors who want to independently manage their capital. There are no opportunities for passive investment in the company, the only option to receive additional income for non-trading activities is to participate in an affiliate program. Services for copying transactions, for managed accounts, for using trading robots are not the focus of M1 Finance. To open an account, an investor will need $100, to open a retirement account, an account must be replenished with $500 or more.

The company has developed its proprietary Pie system, which makes the portfolio rebalancing process more understandable and convenient for both novices and professionals. Other advantages of the broker are zero fees, the ability to trade from a mobile device, and financial compensation to investors in case of bankruptcy.

The disadvantages of M1 Finance are the lack of electronic payment systems for conducting transactions, as well as the limited working hours of the support team.

Seeking Alpha

Intermediate and advanced investors searching for an inexpensive, all-inclusive, all-in-one solution for their investment requirements may find Seeking Alpha Premium to be a good fit.

Seeking Alpha Premium is an all-in-one investing research and suggestion service that provides in-depth analysis of financial news, companies, and other topics, all with the goal of assisting you in making better investment decisions. Whether you want to invest on the move or devote more time to in-depth study and analysis, Seeking Alpha has options to suit your requirements.

No other website offers the unique resources that Seeking Alpha does, including earnings call transcripts, Seeking Alpha Author Ratings, Author Performance indicators, the opportunity to compare stocks side by side with peers, dividend and earnings predictions, and much more.

How to Choose the Best Stock Picking Services

A good way to choose the best stock advisor subscription for you is finding one that matches with your trading and investing strategies.

For example, if you are a day trader, you should find a service that will help you identify stocks that are predicted to rise and fall sharply in a day or a week. On the other hand, if you are a long-term trader, look for services that will recommend stocks that grow slowly over the years.

Apart from that, the service you choose should also be affordable to you, have a proven track record, is safe and easy to use, and affordable to you.

Here are the attributes you should look for when choosing a stock picking service:

Proven Track Record

Just like in everything in life, experience matters the most when choosing a stock picker. A stock picking service that has not been in the market for long and has not served many traders will probably not provide the accurate extensive information that you need.

When choosing a stock picker, choose one that has a longer track record compared to one that has a shorter record.

Safety and Trustability

Before deciding on a stock picker, you should first determine if it's safe and if it can be trusted. Integrity and transparency are essential when it comes to stock-picking services. You would not want to be misled by false stock reports and end up investing in the wrong stocks.

Likewise, you do not want your personal and private information to be compromised because you used an insecure stock-picking site.

Easy Integration and Usability

The stock picker you choose should be easy to use and integrate. If the site is complicated, you might end up getting confused and making the wrong investment decisions, which can eventually cause you to incur losses.

Affordability

When choosing a stock picker, consider how much it costs and if the cost is affordable to you. Then, compare the average returns you expect to get with the amount of money you invested in.

If the returns are more, you should consider using the service. Otherwise, look for a more friendly option.

Best Stock Signals - Top 7 Providers

How does stock picking work?

Stock picking is a process that requires a great deal of research and analysis. First, you will need to generate the stock picks. To generate them, the investors or a stock-picking service will look over various companies' financial records.

They will analyze this data, which will include balance sheets, cash flow statements, the company’s revenues, costs, profits, debt levels, income statements, and many other attributes.

Once they get a clear picture of the company’s financial standing, they will compare this information to the company’s competitors. Not only that. The analysts also study the whole industry that the company is in, and determine how the company is doing in terms of it.

The analyst then uses this data to determine the upside and downside potential of the company. If the upside potential outweighs the downside, and the company shows signs of growth and strong earnings, then it can recommend the investors purchase stocks and shares from the company and vice versa.

Are stock-picking services expensive?

The price of stock picking services depends on the one you choose. Some are free, or offer free features, while most will require you to pay for the services, with the average cost ranging from $10 to $300 per month.

How to Pick a Stock Picking App

Investing in stocks presents an exciting avenue for long-term wealth accumulation. However, the vast world of the stock market might seem intimidating for those new to it. Leveraging a stock-picking app can significantly simplify this journey. Here are some insights to guide beginners in selecting the right stock-picking app:

Define Your Investment Goals: Before diving into the world of investing, be clear about what you hope to achieve. Whether it's securing a comfortable retirement, saving for a house, or other objectives, identifying your goals will lead you to an app tailored to your strategy.

Examine the App's Features: Each stock-picking app comes with its own set of offerings. While some provide real-time stock quotes, others might have news alerts or in-depth research tools. Thoroughly investigate the features of each app to ensure they cater to your needs.

Be Aware of the Fee Structure: Financial clarity is essential. Some apps may offer free trading, whereas others might impose a fee per trade or have a minimum balance requirement. Familiarizing yourself with any costs ensures transparency in your investment journey.

Seek User-Friendly Interfaces: Investing can be complex, so an app with a clear and easy-to-navigate interface can make all the difference. The smoother the user experience, the better.

Check User Reviews and Ratings: Leverage the insights of fellow investors. Browsing through reviews and ratings can offer a peek into the experiences of others. Apps that garner high praise from users with similar investment goals can offer more assurance.

Incorporating these guidelines can aid beginners in identifying a stock-picking app that not only aligns with their investment ambitions but also equips them to make judicious decisions in the stock market.

Are stock-picking services worth it?

Yes, they are worth it. Stock picking services will not only save you a lot of time and energy, but they also offer extensive, and accurate information that will help you make informed investment decisions.

FAQ

Do stock picking services work?

Yes, they work. Data suggests that investors who use stock picking services are more likely to make better investment decisions than those that do not.

How do beginners pick stocks?

Follow three simple steps - decide on your goals, pick an industry that interests you and explore the news and trends, and then identify the company or companies that are on top in the industry.

What are stock picking strategies?

Examples of stock picking strategies include Fundamental Analysis, Qualitative Analysis, Value Investing, Growth Investing, Income Investing and GARP Investing.

Who is the most successful stock picker?

The most successful stock investor is Warren Buffett

Glossary for novice traders

  • 1 Broker

    A broker is a legal entity or individual that performs as an intermediary when making trades in the financial markets. Private investors cannot trade without a broker, since only brokers can execute trades on the exchanges.

  • 2 Trading

    Trading involves the act of buying and selling financial assets like stocks, currencies, or commodities with the intention of profiting from market price fluctuations. Traders employ various strategies, analysis techniques, and risk management practices to make informed decisions and optimize their chances of success in the financial markets.

  • 3 Investor

    An investor is an individual, who invests money in an asset with the expectation that its value would appreciate in the future. The asset can be anything, including a bond, debenture, mutual fund, equity, gold, silver, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and real-estate property.

  • 4 Options trading

    Options trading is a financial derivative strategy that involves the buying and selling of options contracts, which give traders the right (but not the obligation) to buy or sell an underlying asset at a specified price, known as the strike price, before or on a predetermined expiration date. There are two main types of options: call options, which allow the holder to buy the underlying asset, and put options, which allow the holder to sell the underlying asset.

  • 5 Swing trading

    Swing trading is a trading strategy that involves holding positions in financial assets, such as stocks or forex, for several days to weeks, aiming to profit from short- to medium-term price swings or "swings" in the market. Swing traders typically use technical and fundamental analysis to identify potential entry and exit points.

Team that worked on the article

Oleg Tkachenko
Author and expert at Traders Union

Oleg Tkachenko is an economic analyst and risk manager having more than 14 years of experience in working with systemically important banks, investment companies, and analytical platforms. He has been a Traders Union analyst since 2018. His primary specialties are analysis and prediction of price tendencies in the Forex, stock, commodity, and cryptocurrency markets, as well as the development of trading strategies and individual risk management systems. He also analyzes nonstandard investing markets and studies trading psychology.

Olga Shendetskaya
Author and editor at Traders Union

Olga Shendetskaya has been a part of the Traders Union team as an author, editor and proofreader since 2017. Since 2020, Shendetskaya has been the assistant chief editor of the website of Traders Union, an international association of traders. She has over 10 years of experience of working with economic and financial texts. In the period of 2017-2020, Olga has worked as a journalist and editor of laftNews news agency, economic and financial news sections. At the moment, Olga is a part of the team of top industry experts involved in creation of educational articles in finance and investment, overseeing their writing and publication on the Traders Union website.

Mirjan Hipolito
Cryptocurrency and stock expert

Mirjan Hipolito is a journalist and news editor at Traders Union. She is an expert crypto writer with five years of experience in the financial markets. Her specialties are daily market news, price predictions, and Initial Coin Offerings (ICO).