Many people don't have the time to discover, evaluate and choose stocks, so they use services that do it for them. These include stock picking services, newsletters, and websites.
Even if you use these services, you're not completely relieved of your responsibility to investigate or use stock research apps. However, stock pick services can save you a lot of time in the long run.
If you don't have much experience trading stocks, then getting weekly stock picks and alerts can help you become more profitable, both short-term and long term.
With so many sources of stock advice, it's tough to know where to turn. Here's a rundown of key factors to look for in a service, as well as some top picks.
Best Stock Picking Services
I did all the research for you when I was on my goal of turning $10k into $100k and trying to find the best stock advisory services. Here's what I learned:
- Seeking Alpha: Being a crowd-sourcing investment website, Seeking Alpha does well to provide its subscribers with free access to stock analysis and research through its vast amount of contributors. However, premium users get more insightful opinions on their stocks from a pool of skilled investors.
- Morningstar Investor: Regarded as the best in fundamental data analysis, Morningstar Investor is a stock picking service that offers long-term investment and financial research on trading activities. It also provides investment management advice to its subscribers.
- Motley Fool Stock Advisor (My Pick): Founded in 1993 by David and Tom Gardner, Motley Fool Stock Advisor is one of several premium stock picking services that is considered the best solution for long-term investors.
- Motley Fool Epic: Motley Fool Epic is a premium stock-picking service designed for long-term investors. It combines several of The Motley Fool's most popular products, including Stock Advisor, Rule Breakers, Hidden Gems, and Dividend Investor, providing subscribers with five stock picks per month.
- Stock Rover: Stock Rover is one of the most advanced stock screeners out there that has a free plan. It offers a powerful research tool that helps its subscribers explore and analyze equity data by connecting their existing brokerage accounts and helping to uncover trading opportunities.
- Scanz: Scanz is the “all in one” market scanning platform made for day traders and swing traders.
- Zacks Premium: Zack Premium is a stock picking service that offers powerful tools and resources that conventional brokers and investing newsletters don’t offer to help their subscribers outperform the market.
- Warrior Trading: Warrior Trading is a stock picking service that educates its subscribers on how to trade day-to-day strategies. It is perfect for beginner traders looking to break into the day trading space. They offer numerous extensive courses taught by skilled and profitable traders.
- Mindful Trader: Mindful traders are considered the best low-swing trading service in the market. It boasts a comprehensive trade alert platform refined by 20 years of historical data analysis. It is recommended for traders looking to expand their portfolios and earnings by going into swing trading.
- Sykes: The Timothy Sykes Program is a penny stock trading program that offers various resources to help its students learn and develop a basic understanding of different penny stock trading strategies and approaches.
- Swing Trader: Swing Trader is best recommended to beginner traders looking to get into Swing Trading, a program that follows a fundamental type of trading where positions are held for more than a day. It uses technical analysis to analyze the short-term nature of the trades, helping its subscribers better understand trading activity patterns.
When picking a stock picking service, important factors to consider include:
- The accuracy of their recommendations
- How often they provide recommendations
- What type of stocks they focus on
- The fees associated with their service
There are a number of different stock picking services available, so it is important to do your research in order to find the one that best suits your needs.
The accuracy of a service's recommendations is of paramount importance, as you obviously want to make money off of the stocks that you purchase.
Make sure to look at how often the service provides recommendations, as well – if they only provide a handful of picks per year, you might not be getting your money's worth.
Another important factor to consider is what type of stocks the service focuses on. If you are only interested in blue chip stocks, for example, then a service that specializes in penny stocks is not going to be of much use to you.
Finally, be sure to look at the fees associated with the service. Some services charge a monthly fee, while others take a percentage of the profits that you earn from their recommendations. Choose the service that fits best with your budget and investment goals.
Seeking Alpha is a stock picking service serving as a stock database with various educational resources, catering to paid and premium services.
Seeking Alpha enables their subscribers to do their research through their database, offering them free roaming across it without holding their hands at every step of the way.
Seeking Alpha Premium costs $189 per year, which comes with an array of perks like ratings for all stocks and more, but you can try it out for 7 days free through here.
Seeking Alpha Premium offers a comprehensive suite of tools and resources to enhance your investment strategy. With powerful screeners, stay ahead of the game by uncovering hidden investment opportunities. Track your portfolio effectively with real-time alerts, while receiving expert analysis and top stock picks from our Quant System. Stay informed with breaking news and gain valuable knowledge through webinars, podcasts, and articles to elevate your investing skills.
2. Morningstar Investor
Morningstar is a reliable and unbiased independent source that offers a wide range of research, analysis, commentary, and insights to assist investors in making informed decisions.
While some brokerages provide similar services by offering research from Morningstar and other providers, Morningstar's Investor service stands out with its comprehensive depth and breadth, serving as a valuable supplement for confident decision-making.
With a cost of $249 per year for Investor ($199 for My Millennial Guide readers), Morningstar provides a 7-day free trial or a basic plan at no cost.
Well known for its in-depth analysis of stocks, ETFs, and other investments, Morningstar works by focusing on fundamental analysis rather than technical analysis. Morningstar is best for long-term investment strategies that can carry less risk than day trading.
For individuals who actively manage their own portfolios, Morningstar provides a wealth of resources to enhance their investment decision-making process. With its extensive research, analysis, insights, and commentary, investors can develop confidence in selecting suitable investments, establishing an optimal asset allocation, and building a diversified portfolio.
3. Motley Fool Stock Advisor
Motley Fool Stock Advisor is one of the well-known stock pickers as it is the optimal choice for buy-and-hold investors who aim to grow their portfolios. This Stock Advisor works by recommending more traditional, well-established companies when making suggestions as it lowers and significantly reduces your risk by honing in on your growth stocks.
This service boasts almost four times the performance of the S&P 500 for nearly two decades. The different kinds of stocks it recommends are said to grow into higher-valued stocks over time.
Its recommendations for long-term wealth are buying at least 25 stocks from its recommended companies and holding them for at least five years. This is a process that could help build your portfolio substantially over several decades.
And for a sign up cost of $79 for your first year, Motley Fool Stock Advisor gives you complete membership access to their in-depth stock reports and recommendations. You can learn more in our Motley Fool Stock Advisor review.
Want to know which stock to buy next? Check out The Motley Fool advisor program and you can get recommended stock picks before the next market close. Plus, if you join today, you can get special pricing as our reader.
4. Motley Fool Epic
Motley Fool Epic is a premium subscription service offered by The Motley Fool that provides a comprehensive package of stock picks and research tools.
Priced at $499 per year (with occasional discounts), it bundles several of the company's popular stock-picking services: Stock Advisor, Rule Breakers, Hidden Gems, and Dividend Investor.
The Epic subscription includes five new stock picks each month, which consist of:
- Two from Stock Advisor
- One from Rule Breakers (focused on disruptive companies)
- One from Hidden Gems (long-term buy-and-hold stocks)
- One from Dividend Investor (focused on dividend-paying stocks).
Subscribers also gain access to tools like Fool IQ+ for in-depth stock research, model portfolios based on different risk tolerance levels, and rankings to help prioritize investments. Epic is tailored for long-term investors who are comfortable holding stocks for at least five years.
The package is ideal for those looking to diversify their portfolio with well-researched stocks and includes additional features like research reports, a members-only podcast, and portfolio strategies.
Motley Fool Epic is a premium stock-picking service designed for long-term investors. It combines several of The Motley Fool's most popular products, including Stock Advisor, Rule Breakers, Hidden Gems, and Dividend Investor, providing subscribers with five stock picks per month. These picks are supported by extensive research tools, portfolio strategies, and additional resources like Fool IQ+, helping investors make informed decisions. The service is ideal for those looking to diversify their investments and access high-conviction stock recommendations across various sectors.
5. Stock Rover
Stock Rover is a great service that connects to your existing brokerage account. It then analyzes your existing portfolio and uses this information to help you find various growth opportunities.
Stock Rover comes with several great perks but one of the major ones is its custom stock screeners. It is possible to choose from over 140 already built screens, or you can build your own.
Most of these screens are built around various investment strategies giving an edge to satisfy a wide range of stock needs. Stock Rover also offers its users access to hundreds of metrics, ranging from efficiency and financial standings to ratings, but unfortunately, this doesn’t extend to cryptocurrency.
Stock Rover has a variety of paid plans and a free plan for readers of My Millennial Guide.
Its Essentials Plan, which comes for $79.99 a year, gives access to over 8,500 stocks, over 250 financial metrics, brokerage integration, and much more.
The Premium plan for $179.99 a year gives access to an additional 90 metrics, advanced alerts, prioritized phone alerts, and much more.
Finally, Premium Plus, $279.99 a year, gives you a whopping 300 additional metrics, custom metrics, equation screening, and even more analytical tools.
6. Scanz
Scanz is a highly popular tool for keeping an eye on the markets and finding out what's going on in real time. It's simple to use, which means it's very useful for customers. Rather of constantly refreshing price displays and hunting for news, you may be alerted to any updates that are relevant to you.
Alerts can be set up for price changes, volume changes, percentage changes, companies, industries, or even entire markets, meaning you can be as broad or specific as you like in your search for market movements.
By tracking what's happening in the market, you can be the first to know about new developments and take advantage of them.
If you're looking for a tool that will help you stay on top of the markets, Scanz is a great choice. It's easy to use and can be customized to your needs, making it a valuable asset for any investor.
- The Scanz News Streamer, which is $79/month, monitors NASDAQ, NYSE, and AMEX news and SEC filings. It also includes streaming charts, two online discount broker integrations, and more.
- For only $99 a month, you can have access to the Trade Scanner. This tool not only scans data on NASDAQ, NYSE, and AMEX but also has breakout alerts, unlimited watchlists, streaming charts, a montage window and more!
The “FilterBuilder” in Scanz (formerly EquityFeed Workstation) is the most well-known feature. You can filter and choose equities based on your specified criteria, such as value, growth, momentum, or even penny stocks.
If you want both the News Streamer and Trade Scanner, get them together for only $149/month.
Scanz is the "all in one" market scanning platform for day traders and swing traders. The service delivers "extreme real-time" data and news to make sure you can take advantage of trading opportunities as soon as they come available.
Zacks Premium is a stock picking service that primarily analyzes stocks, mutual funds, shares, and ETFs. Zacks Premium doesn’t function by informing you of which stocks to buy but shares the ratings of stocks selected when researching picks on their site. It’s also a great research platform for digging into new stock statistics.
All these services and much more cost $249 a year, and with this, you can view their focus list portfolio, equity research reports, premium screens, Zacks Rank, etc. The Zacks Investor Collection costs $495 a year and comes with all of the features as Zacks Premium, an ETF investor, stocks under $10 list, confidential stock listings, and much more. A limited free version is also available, where you can preview five stocks on the Zacks list.
8. Warrior Trading
Warrior Trading is a great way to start trading as a beginner, as it offers great educational tools to access short-term growth opportunities. This service acts more like a crash course with a high-risk, high-reward trading environment and isn’t compatible with long-term growth in a steady and safe environment.
Warrior Trading’s main focus is financial and stock education but it also offers courses on how to read a stock chart like a professional. There is a bustling chat room where you can get advice on various topics like short-term day trading, swing trading, scalping, and other short-term strategies during market hours. Warrior Trading also organizes webinars, online courses, and group mentoring sessions designed to introduce users to the world of investing and day trading.
Warrior Trading has different plans suited to your needs. The Warrior Starter costs $997, and a monthly subscription of $197 after 30 days. On the other hand, Warrior Pro costs $5,997 for one year or $4,297 for 90 days and a monthly subscription of $197 30 days after.
9. Mindful Trader
Mindful trader, managed by Eric Ferguson, offers stock buy alerts in which Eric will personally walk you through his live trades, allowing you to duplicate a similar trade. It also comes with a watchlist functionality, primarily focusing on potential entry, potential profit, and potential stop.
You can also access Eric’s live positions list, daily market commentary emails, and various educational videos. Eric is also available to contact you directly with questions.
All this comes at an affordable $47 per month with just one membership tier. A price cheaper than most other stock picking services.
10. Sykes
You probably heard of Timothy Sykes, as he is one of the best investors to follow this year. The Timothy Sykes Program is a service that relies heavily on technical analysis, as he breaks down stock charts for most trades and purchases penny stocks just before they take off; he then sells them before they can begin to settle down.
Following the Timothy Sykes approach will have you holding a stock for a few hours instead of holding over multiple days.
The Program has different plans whose costs range from $75.95/month for the basic plans to $149.95/month for the Silver package.
11. Swing Trader
The IBD Swing Trader was designed for beginner swing trading as the platform offers various educational services similar to some services on this list.
There are seven key factors Swing Trader deals with when analyzing stocks; current quarterly earnings, annual earnings, new products/management leading to growth, supply of stock diminishing, laggard stocks overperforming, investors with strong positions in the stock, and overall bullish market direction.
Unfortunately, compared to the competition, which overperformed, Swing Trader underperformed against the S&P 500 during the first half of 2021. Swing Trader costs just 469/month with a three-week trial option for $9.95.
What are Stock Picking Services?
Stock Picking services work by giving specific stock recommendations to their customers. By offering their subscribers suggestions on what to buy, these stock picking services do the hard work of compiling and analyzing detailed stock data sets like market shares, quarterly earnings, and much more.
There are different stock picking services, which depend on how they offer their services to customers. Often, they can be in the form of investment newsletters, either through email or physical mail like magazines. They can also be in the form of subscriptions on smartphone apps or website access, but what matters the most in these different stock picking services isn’t the medium through which it is delivered, but the content delivered itself.
Want to know which stock to buy next? Check out The Motley Fool advisor program and you can get recommended stock picks before the next market close. Plus, if you join today, you can get special pricing as our reader.
Which Stock Picker Should You Pick?
Stock pickers rely on algorithms and AI (Artificial Intelligence). They use these functionalities to analyze metrics so that they can use this information to suggest which companies they can safely bet on to their users.
Even though stock pickers aren’t for everyone, they can benefit beginners, skilled investors, and other day traders to help them make better choices when choosing which stocks to invest in and what time to invest.
Many of these functionalities can be accessed for free on these stock pickers, but the really good stuff is often hidden behind the paid plans.
If you're wondering which stock picker is right for you, discover frequently asked traders and long term investors generally have:
FAQs
That would have to be the Motley Fool. They are undoubtedly the best stock picking service on the market, be it Stock Advisor or the Motley Fool Epic bundle; they provide their users with top-notch analyses to help them decide what to buy and sell.
Zacks Premium comes with a large library of free investment advice along with charts of major exchanges, recommended stock lists, and ranks of various mutual funds. Zacks isn’t limited to local stocks alone, as they also offer advice on international stocks.
Morningstar Premium offers some of the best free stock research tools out there with access to free stock market websites which provide you with detailed information about the financial markets.
Stock pickers are best used by active investors in the stock market, especially the ones looking to grow their portfolios either long-term or swing traders looking for short-term growth.
Best Stock Picking Services Summary
Deciding what stocks to buy can be quite difficult and take some time — which is why a lot of people use stock picking services to help them make this choice. This is because investors constantly seek an advantage over the market with individual stocks.
Fortunately, with these picking services, investors can choose to be an active trader with daily stock picks or simply relax and have their investments on autopilot, managing themselves and engaging in index fund investments through investment advisors or robo-advisors. This has become a tradition because it is easy and has been proven to work.
Here's to you scrolling back and choosing the best stock picking services for you depending on your investing goals and budget.
Want to know which stock to buy next? Check out The Motley Fool advisor program and you can get recommended stock picks before the next market close. Plus, if you join today, you can get special pricing as our reader.
