Knowledge is power. These reputable stock market resources all offer a combination of breaking market and economic news, long-form analysis from experienced market participants, and powerful tools that empower you to perform your own due diligence on potential investments.
Retail investors have a wealth of information at their fingertips about the stock market.
Some might say they have too much. All the investing-related noise out there is simply impossible for the average lay investor to process.
This is especially true if you want to build and manage a diversified portfolio composed mainly of individual stocks.
A bespoke portfolio requires far more legwork and attention than an auto-rebalanced robo-advisor portfolio comprising primarily index funds. It requires access to reliable, expert-level sources of actionable information about publicly traded equities and equity markets — the best stock research platforms operating today.
Top Stock Market Investment Research Sites
These reputable stock market resources all offer a combination of breaking market and economic news, long-form analysis from experienced market participants, and powerful tools that empower you to perform your own due diligence on potential investments. Here’s what you need to know to get the most out of each.
1. Motley Fool Stock Advisor
Motley Fool Stock Advisor is a premium Motley Fool product that’s been educating retail investors for 15 years.
Stock Advisor centers around recurring stock picks from the Motley Fool co-founders Tom and David Gardner, who’ve called many of the past 20 years’ best buys, including Amazon, Netflix, Disney, and Booking.
The Gardners lay out an exhaustive case for each pick, including potential risks, and offer 24/7 monitoring so that you can act quickly to reduce exposure if and when facts change. They put real money behind their recommendations, and they’re transparent about their picks’ growth over time.
Click to See the Latest Stock Advisor Picks
Average returns to date (07/15/22):
- Stock Advisor: 397%
- S&P 500: 128%
Actual picks and date of recommendation:
- Booking Holdings (Priceline Group): +7,276.6% (5/21/2004)
- Shopify: +866.6% (7/15/2016)
- Netflix: +6,110% (6/15/2007)
Stock Advisor also comes with a slew of value-added features, including:
- Best Buys Now, the Gardners’ time-sensitive bonus stock picks
- Starter Stocks, a rotating monthly list of 10 foundational stocks for new portfolios
- A vast knowledge base dating back 15 years, perfect for self-directed investors eager to learn
- Breaking market news and analysis
- Access to a proprietary report on a legal cannabis stock that Motley Fool believes is a once-in-a-generation investment opportunity
- Access to fellow subscribers and stock analysts through the members-only Stock Advisor community
Bonus: Sign up for Motley Fool Stock Advisor and you’ll receive their free report, “One Stock For The Cannabis Boom.”
2. Motley Fool Rule Breakers
Motley Fool Rule Breakers is another premium product from the Motley Fool. The focus of Rule Breakers is on companies with explosive, disruptive growth opportunities.
They’re looking for tomorrow’s market leaders. Some past recommendations include:
- Tesla: Up 10,606.2%
- Baidu: Up 1,684.0%
- Intuitive Surgical: Up 3,989.6%
They look for businesses that meet the following attributes:
- Innovative leadership
- Sustainable competitive advantage
- History of stock price growth
- Strong management teams
- High consumer appeal and branding
Both Rule Breakers and Stock Advisor provide two new stock recommendations each month and their own Best Buys Now, timely investment opportunities, and starter stocks.
Both have a 30-day risk-free period, during which you can cancel your subscription for a 100% refund.
3. Seeking Alpha
Limited time offer: Save 50% off a Seeking Alpha Premium plan. Click Here to sign up and you’ll also receive a 14-day free trial.
Seeking Alpha is a content-rich resource for retail and professional investors. Although it started as a contributor-powered community for hobbyists, Seeking Alpha has professionalized over the years, and the news and analysis it delivers today are top-shelf stuff. In fact, much of it may go over the heads of readers who aren’t well-versed in the technical aspects of equities investing and microeconomics.
Much of Seeking Alpha’s content is ungated and available to the general public, but the platform’s best stuff is largely reserved for paying subscribers. You have two plan options:
Seeking Alpha Premium
For $19.99 per month when billed monthly or $29.99 per month when billed annually, Seeking Alpha Premium offers unlimited access to all proprietary Seeking Alpha stock and exchange-traded fund (ETF) analysis, plus unlimited access to earnings call transcripts and recordings — key sources of information about corporate decision-makers’ strategic thinking.
Seeking Alpha Premium also includes more details about authors (so investors can evaluate their motivations and track records) and proprietary quantitative ratings that may reveal trading opportunities.
Seeking Alpha PRO
For $199.99 per month when billed annually or $299.99 per month when billed monthly, PRO subscribers get an ad-free experience and a seven days’ head start on all Seeking Alpha investing recommendations. They also enjoy VIP customer support by phone and email, and a proprietary Idea Filter that sorts through vast troves of data to highlight potential trading opportunities.
As someone who doesn’t trade for a living, I struggle to see the value in PRO’s hefty price tag, especially when Premium is available for much less. But Seeking Alpha’s interface is a bit cluttered and noisy, so an ad-free experience with white-glove service may be worth it to some investors.
And serious traders may appreciate the combination of a week’s advance notice on Seeking Alpha picks and access to the proprietary Idea Filter. This certainly isn’t the casual investor’s first choice, though.
4. Trade Ideas
Trade Ideas is an AI-powered market strategy platform for serious traders seeking a decisive edge in the kill-or-be-killed world of high-frequency trading. Its selling points include:
- Holly, an artificial intelligence investment discovery engine that could help you uncover trading ideas you never knew existed
- The OddsMaker, a backtester that lets you analyze how your strategies would have performed in historic market conditions
- Real-time simulated trading (paper trading) with no risk of principal loss
- Automated execution through a linked Interactive Brokers account (real-world trading)
- One-click trading for rapid execution
- Breaking news and analysis for specific stocks
And, for licensed financial professionals, Trade Ideas boasts an even more powerful suite of AI-enabled backtesting and portfolio management capabilities. At more than $2,000 per year for the Premium plan, Trade Ideas isn’t cheap, but you get what you pay for.
5. Zacks Investment Research
Zacks Investment Research is an independent market research outfit known for detailed, engagingly written stock and fund picks that often go against the grain of conventional wisdom.
Zacks’ website has a pretty extensive archive of free content for casual investors, including articles, video commentary, and even podcasts covering a variety of topics. Investors who become free Profit from the Pros members can access even more content and tools, such as a portfolio tracker, a customizable stock screener with 100+ criteria, and the Bull Stock of the day.
For investors who crave more powerful tools to do their own research, the good stuff is inside Zacks Premium, which offers a risk-free 30-day trial period.
Zacks Premium includes:
- The Zacks #1 List, a roundup of top picks that’s more than doubled the performance of the S&P 500 since 1988.
- Zacks Premium Screener, with 45 predefined screens created to outperform the market.
- Style Scores, which rank all stocks on the Zacks #1 list for Value, Growth, and Momentum.
- The Focus List, a 50-stock portfolio featuring stocks with high long-term earnings potential. For investors looking to build diversified buy-and-hold portfolios, the Focus List is something close to a one-stop shop.
- Industry Rank, because research shows that stocks in the top 50% of industries beat stocks in the bottom 50% by a factor of 2.
- The Zacks Earnings Expected Surprise Prediction (ESP) Filter, which identifies stocks with the highest probability of upside earnings surprises (and the accompanying stock-price surges).
- Equity Research Reports for more than 1,000 of the most widely followed stocks.
As of this writing, Zacks is ranked #2 in quantitative research over the past six years by Investars. On a pure performance basis, Zacks is hard to beat.
6. Motley Fool Everlasting Stocks
Motley Fool Everlasting Stocks is a trove of high-conviction stock picks and trading ideas from the team responsible for Motley Fool Rule Breakers and Stock Advisor — a team that has “4Xed” the S&P 500 over the last 17 years.
Everlasting Stocks isn’t just a list of quality stocks likely to outperform the broader market though. It’s a window into the thinking of Motley Fool co-founder and CEO Tom Gardner, who personally owns every single stock in the lineup. Gardner is quite literally putting his money behind these names — names he believes any investor can (and maybe should) buy today and hold indefinitely.
And what names are those? Some Everlasting Stocks stalwarts are true household names, including:
- Netflix
- Tesla
- Shopify
Sign up to receive 15 stock recommendations instantly, and stick around for future stock recommendations (updated quarterly) as long as you’re a member. Why wait any longer?
7. Stock Rover
Stock Rover is a no-nonsense research platform with a wealth of useful tools, metrics, and insights not available anywhere else. The free plan is fine for casual traders and investors, but the lure of its three paid plans may be too much for serious market participants to resist.
Stock Rover’s top plan, Premium Plus, includes:
- More than 650 distinct stock metrics and several proprietary multimetric packages.
- Weekly Ideas for value- and growth-seeking traders.
- More than 10 years of historical data for backward-looking analysis
- Brokerage Connect, a secure way to sync your external brokerage account with your Stock Rover account.
- Proprietary stock ratings and research reports from the Stock Rover team.
- A visual earnings calendar that simplifies planning and execution during earnings season.
- Time-stamped note-taking capabilities for active traders eager to review their work later.
Stock Rover’s paid products have a slew of other value-adds, including multiple-monitor support (another essential for serious traders). Pricing ranges from $7.99 per month or $79.99 per year for the Basic plan to $27.99 per month or $279.99 per year for Premium Plus. Pay for two years upfront and you’ll save even more.
Stock Rover offers one additional a la carte value-add worth calling out in detail: Stock Rover Research Reports. These comprehensive, up-to-the-minute research reports feature eight pages of proprietary detail, including premium Stock Rover metrics like Margin of Safety, Fair Value, and Stock Rover scores — more than two dozen in all.
Stock Rover Research Reports are available for purchase individually, but they’re an even better deal for Premium subscribers, who can snag them at a discount.
The bottom line: If you like what you see in the free plan, give upgrading a shot.
8. Mindful Trader
Mindful Trader is a data-driven stock picking service and trading strategy platform that allows regular investors to follow — and mimic — the market-beating moves of Eric, its numbers-whiz founder.
Eric posts his picks, which are typically swing trades that last a week or so, in real time for subscribers to follow. It’s easy to follow along and, as long as you have an active brokerage account with stock, options, and futures capabilities at your disposal, easy enough to do exactly what Eric does.
Although swing trading is inherently risky, Eric usually sticks to big companies with market caps north of $10 billion. More cautious traders can rest assured that Mindful Trader isn’t a penny stock newsletter.
9. Tim Alerts
Timothy Sykes is a charismatic day trader who claims he’s earned nearly $5 million in profits trading penny stocks. Tim Alerts is an in-depth digest of Sykes’ trading picks and activities. It includes:
- Early delivery of Sykes’ daily Pennystocking newsletter, a list of the stocks he’s watching each day. Non-subscribers receive Pennystocking at 9am Eastern, just 30 minutes before the markets open. Subscribers get it an hour early.
- Near real-time trade emails alerting subscribers when Sykes’ makes a trade — ideal for quick-footed traders looking to replicate Sykes’ moves.
At $74.95 per month, Tim Alerts is not cheap. You’ll need to determine whether you can afford to invest enough to recoup your costs. Alternatively, if you do find that Tim Alerts is a great value for your investing strategy, consider upgrading to Pennystocking Silver, a premium plan that includes weekly video lessons and access to more than 6,000 archived videos.
10. MarketClub
MarketClub is one of the few technical trading tools designed for beginners — or at least people who haven’t made their living in the market for years and years.
MarketClub monitors more than 350,000 charts in real time so that you don’t have to. It uses proprietary technology to generate unique buy and sell signals that you can’t find anywhere else. And because trading success doesn’t happen overnight, it comes with a 30-day free trial during which you’re free to test out all its features and capabilities.
MarketClub’s highlights include:
- Trade Triangle: A proprietary set of signals that tells you when to enter and exit a position.
- Custom Scans and Filters: Powerful analysis tools to help you find opportunities that meet your needs and goals.
- Trade Alerts and Warnings: Let MarketClub tell you when it’s time to double down or run for the hills.
- Technical Charts: 20 unique chart views to help you spot patterns others might miss.
- Trade School: Get unique insights and tips from experienced traders you won’t find anywhere else.
- Portfolio Manager: Monitor your stock portfolio over time, create watchlists, and plot your next moves.
- Stock Options: Add-on options strategy teaches traders to maximize returns and limit downside risk.
After the 30-day free trial ends, MarketClub costs $150 when billed quarterly or $449 when billed annually.
11. Benzinga Pro
Benzinga Pro is a digital streaming platform with a powerful set of research and analysis tools for serious investors. Its Basic plan ($99 per month or $79 per month when paid annually) features:
- Nasdaq basic delayed quotes
- A watchlist with custom alerts
- Detailed stock analysis with key statistics and market metrics
- Insights into stocks making the biggest moves each trading day
- Access to the Benzinga newsfeed, which features original market commentary and analysis, SEC filings, company press releases, and Benzinga partner content
- A powerful market calendar tool
Benzinga Pro’s Essential plan ($177 per month or $117 per month when paid annually) adds:
- Nasdaq basic real-time quotes
- Audio squawk (live audio headlines and real-time alerts)
- Newsdesk chat (instant conversations with reporters at Benzinga’s headquarters)
- Detailed market sentiment indicators
- Detailed market signals data, with options data available for an additional fee
Benzinga Pro’s custom-priced Enterprise plan tacks on even more capabilities, including companywide licenses and report-publishing privileges.
In addition to these two Pro tiers, Benzinga also offers two in-depth courses for serious traders eager to develop stock trading or forex expertise. Benzinga’s “How to Trade Stocks” course covers:
- How to choose the right broker
- Expert trading strategies
- Price studies
- Stock technicals and indicators
- Developing a trading plan
- Trading psychology
And Benzinga’s Forex 101 course covers:
- The basics of foreign currency markets
- How forex pairings work
- Forex fundamental analysis
- Risk-reward ratios
- Using TradingView for charting and order placement
- Example forex trades
12. INVRS
INVRS is an “all-in-one investment research platform” built by and for DIY investors.
The INVRS differentiator is comprehensiveness. As a DIY investor, you know how time-consuming it can be to research equities and trade ideas — and how many resources tend to be necessary to do proper due diligence.
INVRS removes the clutter and brings the entire research process under one digital roof. that means:
- Full data coverage of all North American stocks and funds
- A complete lineup of stock analysis and research tools
- Secure brokerage links that make it easy to apply proprietary insights to your holdings in real time
- Do-It-Together (DIT) investing — a collaborative, content-driven community built around a network of creators willing to share their insights, successes, and, yes, failures with other INVRS users
13. Market Gear
Market Gear is a customizable trading insights platform that seamlessly integrates with your brokerage account to deliver real-time intelligence and help you become a better trader.
Sign up for Market Gear’s Signature kit using this offer link to get a two-week free trial and 50% off your first month (normally $65 per month when billed annually). You’ll get a powerful package that includes:
- A comprehensive earnings and dividend calendar
- Customizable heat maps
- Detailed charting tools with more than 100 indicators
- Multiple watchlists with tile and list view
- Proprietary insights from leading market intelligence platforms like Benzinga
- A trade journal with auto-journaling and history displayed on your charts
- Customizable market alert templates and real-time scan alerts
- Demo account trading through Choice Trade
- More than 20 dozen options templates
- Live account trading
- Trading sharing with individuals, groups, and the general public
Market Gear connects to most major U.S. brokers, including Ally Invest, ChoiceTrade, E*Trade, and TD Ameritrade.
14. Finnyvest
Finnyvest is a powerful market research package that includes some proprietary tools and metrics you won’t find anywhere else:
- Finny’s “X-ray” stock and fund analyses, featuring the bull and bear case for most U.S.-listed stocks and funds
- The Finny Score, a proprietary gauge that measures the balance of positives and negatives for individual stocks and funds
- Stock and fund comparison tools that show how individual securities fare in head-to-head comparisons of similar names
- Useful stock and fund screeners that incorporate Finny Scores and other key metrics
Sign up for an annual membership ($100 per year) and try out Finnyvest’s full feature lineup during a no-obligation seven-day free trial period, or opt for a monthly subscription ($15 per month) that you can cancel at any time.
15. Morningstar
Morningstar Investor is a feature-rich research suite from one of the world’s most respected equities research firms. Its signature features are:
- A collection of exclusive stock screeners anchored by Morningstar’s industry-leading research from more than 150 independent analysts
- Members-only ratings and valuations compiled by the Morningstar team
- Investment monitoring tools that help you assess overall portfolio quality and performance
After a seven-day free trial period, Morningstar Investor costs $34.95 per month or $249 per year. Note that you’ll pay significantly less if you pay for a year upfront rather than paying monthly.
16. Yahoo! Finance
In less competitive times, Yahoo! Finance was the go-to resource for retail investors seeking financial news, analytic tools, and high-quality analysis without a pricey subscription.
Yahoo! Finance still comes without that pricey subscription. And it still boasts a nice lineup of complimentary analytic tools, research reports, straight financial news, and user-generated content. But its free suite is no longer the only game in town — nor the best, at least not for serious investors.
Fortunately, there’s Yahoo! Finance Plus, a reasonably priced package with two plans, Lite and Essential. Both plans and the unpaid Yahoo! Finance resource offer:
- Real-time news and stock quotes during trading hours
- Direct trading via linked brokers (if your brokerage participates)
- A portfolio watchlist with unlimited stocks
- Interactive stock charts for research and performance monitoring
The Lite plan ($25 per month or $250 per year when paid annually) adds:
- Daily trading ideas based on your stated interests
- Monthly webinars and Q&As with investing experts
- Advanced portfolio analytics for serious traders
- Fair value analysis for listed stocks
- Proprietary leading indicator metrics from Yahoo! Finance partners for industry and economic analyses
- Limited ads
- Live chat support on the desktop version
- 24/7 technical support
The Essential plan ($35 per month or $350 per year when paid annually) adds:
- Enhanced charting with technical analysis features not available in Yahoo! Finance’s free suite
- Curated investment research from trusted third parties like Morningstar and Argus Research
- An exclusive investment newsletter (Market Digest)
- Unique company data plus historical financials and statistics with CSV export capabilities
As noted, unpaid Yahoo! Finance users get only the first four premium features. If you’re a low-stakes hobbyist, these features might be all you need. Otherwise, take a closer look at Yahoo! Finance Plus.
17. The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is the financial industry’s leading daily publication. It features a trove of timely business and economic news, much of it written by staff reporters with decades of experience — a refreshing contrast to wire reports churned out by nonspecialists.
WSJ’s real differentiator, though, is a growing portfolio of internally produced columns, such as Heard on the Street and Wealth Adviser. You shouldn’t base your investing strategy solely on WSJ staff projections, but they provide insights you might miss elsewhere, plus a sober tone that’s increasingly rare in the digital investor community.
18. Google Finance
Google Finance is a bare-bones stock research suite that’s ideal for DIY investors comfortable performing due diligence with minimal support.
Google Finance is free, and it won’t put up a paywall anytime soon. I use it to review the latest U.S. and world markets news quickly. Its watchlist feature is ideal for less experienced investors looking to build and track mock portfolios before plowing their hard-earned funds into the market.
What Google Finance doesn’t have is the sort of proprietary analysis and research you get with a paid subscription to sites such as Morningstar, Motley Fool, or Zacks. Still, there’s little downside to checking your watchlist stocks and headlines here every morning.
19. Your Online Brokerage’s Research Portal
Your online brokerage almost certainly has a wealth of free analytic tools, such as stock screeners, along with a slew of financial wire stories and analyst reports. Full-service brokerages tend to score particularly well on this measure.
Merrill Edge, Bank of America’s self-directed trading platform, offers professional-grade analytic tools through Merrill Edge MarketPro®. To qualify, you must make at least 15 trades per month or keep a minimum of $50,000 in balances across combined eligible Bank of America/Merrill Lynch deposit and investment accounts.
TD Ameritrade’s thinkorswim trading platform incorporates breaking news and analysis into a powerful analytics package that includes nontraditional measures such as social sentiment. It’s ideal for those who trade for a living or hobbyists looking to compete with the professionals. Thinkorswim carries no additional charge when you pay TD Ameritrade’s commissions.
If you haven’t already, investigate your brokerage’s research and analytic tools, and consider making a change if they’re not up to snuff.
Final Word
If one thing ties all these investment news and market data research tools together, it’s their appeal to self-directed investors — people looking to create and manage their own portfolios.
Does that mean investors without the time or inclination to manage their own investments needn’t pay attention to market news or company reports? Not at all. Even if you work with a full-service financial advisor who handles day-to-day investment management, you need to stay informed. How else will you be able to challenge your financial advisor when they make questionable investing decisions or appear to deviate from the plan you’ve laid out?
Knowledge is power, whether or not you’re in the driver’s seat.
