Being an amateur on the stock market has its challenges. There are so many opinions on everything, some seem more worth than others. Some people get rich, and some not. At the end of the day it’s your money, and if you are to follow someone elses advice, they better be good.
In this post I would like to give my input on the available “expert advice” services, how they helped me (or not).
One general advice from me before we start: Do your due diligence, and listen to experts, but let yourself make the decisions on where to invest your money. YOU have to be comfortable with your decisions. You can never blame anyone but yourself if things goes bad..
Investing.com
I use this service mainly to look at metrics. You will find a lot of useful data here such as PE, margins, EPS, cashflow and more. Before trading I look at candlesticks at Investing.com, not found on many other websites.
+ Lot’s of useful data, and candlestick patterns. Covers a lot of non-US markets as well.
– Cant find anything negative about this service, but it’s mainly metrics and not really any advice.
Barchart.com
This is a neat service even at the free plan. I assume you get value for money if you choose a paid plan, but for my own needs I found the free version good enough. Good for US and Canadian stock market. Unique to this website is the “Barchart Opinion” which provides a easy to understand view of how a particular stock is trending. Powered by some proprietary code in the background I guess, but saves you a lot of time in your own analysis.
+ Barchart Opinion is usually quite accurate in a “normal” market mood, and let you avoid stocks that look strong but may fall back to a long term bear trend. Lot’s of other functions and filters that is not mentioned here.
– Mostly US and Canadian stocks.
Zacks.com
Zacks is quite unique with their own analysis and their own scoring system. The “Zacks rank” feature could give you some quick feeling about a stock, but sometimes it’s really hard to understand the reasoning behind the results. From time to time I get the impression that their algorithms are going a bit berserk.
+ Quick analysis of trend, value etc.
– Not always accurate. If you sign up, you will get seriously spammed. It’s all about selling all kinds of paid plans, and they shove tons of arguments how good they are but little about the actual costs..
Simplywall.st
SimplyWallstreet is all about presenting valuable stock data in a structured layout on one page. It actually works, and you also have some nice graphics to get a visual impression of strengths and weaknesses. Also have an app. You get a limited free full views per month, but you can get a paid plan and increase that amount of views.
+ Very nice structure. Also digs into company ownership, board tenure, company outlook etc.
– Sometimes Simplywall.st has a pretty strong opinion on how much earnings will grow or decline, and it seems that their algorithms get way off sometimes.
Marketwatch.com
Marketwatch has a lot of data, and also a nice collection of newsfeeds. I usually use this service to keep track of profit estimates, and whether a company beats expectations or not.
+ Presents a nice view on current and historical recommendations from various analysts.
– Cant thing of anything negative.
Final conclusion
- Most websites presents known metrics, and the value you get is readable and understandable data.
- Not many websites provide an actual recommendation, and if they do it might be the result of an AI algorithm rather than a human being with skills and experience.
- They all have paid services. The free versions are mainly teasers.
- Let your own analysis and feeling guide you when making investment decisions.