Are you an investor looking for the next big opportunity? Do you struggle to find the time to analyze companies and vet stocks on your own? Seeking Alpha may be the solution you need.
With a focus on communal input, Seeking Alpha provides a plethora of both paid and free subscription content. Its services include hot stock ideas and market news, making it stand out from other investment research platforms.
Seeking Alpha’s content is generated by both professional and amateur financial advisors, and they also offer a proprietary “Quant” rating for various securities.
In this Seeking Alpha review, we’ll take a closer look at its features to help you decide if it’s worth the investment.
Table of Contents
What Is Seeking Alpha?
Seeking Alpha is a stock market investor service that’s been around since 2004 and is headquartered in New York. It’s a unique platform that uses crowdsourced ideas from a global pool of investors, meaning people from around the world share their investing ideas with others. Seeking Alpha has a focus on stock investing, but it also provides research and analysis for ETFs, commodities, mutual funds, and cryptocurrency.
With over 20 million monthly visitors, Seeking Alpha is a thriving community where over 7,000 contributors publish 10,000 investing ideas each month. And that’s not all. Seeking Alpha editorial staff reviews each post before publishing to make sure that the content passes a quality review. These posts are more like well thought out research reports than simple message board discussions.
In addition to its crowdsourced content, Seeking Alpha offers various stock ratings, including the Quantitative Analysis Rating, the Seeking Alpha Author Rating, and the Wall Street Rating. While the Wall Street Ratings are available to free members, the Quant and Author Ratings are exclusive to Premium members. These ratings have proven valuable in predicting future performance.
Seeking Alpha Features
1) Articles: a variety of content from fundamental analysis and portfolio investment strategy to investment ideas and market news.
2) Article Sidebar: helps you determine which Seeking Alpha contributors align with your investment philosophy.
3) Seeking Alpha Quant Rating: offers a proprietary quantitative (“Quant”) rating on various assets to predict future performance.
4) Portfolio Alerts & Monitoring: email alerts synced to your favorite brokerage with real-time information about all of your assets.
5) Factor Grading: scorecards made up of five different factor grades: Valuation, Growth, Profitability, Momentum, and Revisions.
6) Podcasts & Newsletters: convenient access to stream podcasts or subscribe to a variety of newsletters covering stock analysis, market news, earnings expectations, and investing ideas.
7) Proprietary Stock Screener: includes stock ratings and author analysis with pre made screening lists or customizable options.
Seeking Alpha Pricing
Seeking Alpha offers three membership types: Basic (Free), Premium, and Pro. The Basic membership provides access to limited features, while the Premium subscription offers users more in-depth tools and graphics.
The Premium plan costs $29.99 per month if you pay month to month. If you choose to prepay for one year, which is refundable, you can save $120 per year and pay $239.88 per year ($19.99 per month).
You can also prepay for three years at $540, which comes down to $14.99 per month. If you have a portfolio of more than $24,000, the Premium subscription is worth it as the annual fee of $240 is just 1%. It can provide insights into which stocks to sell and which to buy more of, making it an excellent investment. Seeking Alpha’s Pro subscription, which offers even more features, is priced at $299.99 per month or $2,400 per year (save $1,200).
If you think premium is right for you and would like to get 50% off your first year, click this Seeking Alpha Premium Subscription coupon to receive your discount.
Seeking Alpha Review- Pros & Cons
Pros
- Free basic option
- Active community of investors
- Multiple newsletters for free
- Access to an advanced Stock screener tool
- Brokerage account link to monitor portfolio
- Stock alerts
Cons
- Limited free content (5 articles per month)
- Marketplace subscriptions cost extra
- May be overwhelming for new investors
- Not ideal for those interested in mutual funds
- Some articles may have conflicting opinions
Seeking Alpha Alternatives
If you are a beginning investor or don’t want to pay the higher cost of Seeking Alpha, you are in luck, there are other options out there. One comparable service, that is easier for beginners to understand and comes at a lower price point, is The Motley Fool.
To compare these two fantastic services, to determine which is right for you, read this Motley Fool Vs Seeking Alpha article.
Is Seeking Alpha Right For Me?
If you’re an active investor with some experience and a moderate amount of money to invest regularly, then Seeking Alpha may be the right investment service for you. One thing is for sure, Seeking Alpha is reliable.
It might not be ideal for rookies or those only interested in mutual funds, but for those who enjoy researching individual securities and are serious, active traders with multiple individual stocks, it is a valuable resource.
With Seeking Alpha’s five free monthly article restriction, you pretty much have to pay for the Premium plan to fully utilize the platform’s features. Although it may seem pricey at $29.99 per month or $239 to $540 upfront for the discounted pricing, if you spend time reading and learning from the content, Seeking Alpha Premium is worth the investment.
If you’re interested in trying out Seeking Alpha Premium, you can start a free trial here.
About Carson Derrow
