A successful investment portfolio highly depends on the research and fundamental analysis you perform before purchasing that stock. The hard part is having to source out different research reports, charts, analyst ratings and company financials independently.
Thankfully, companies like Seeking Alpha have made this process much easier by providing you access to all the data in one place, along with exclusive articles from other platform members and expert analyst ratings. What is Seeking Alpha, how does it work, and is it worth it? We'll discuss all of the above in this Seeking Alpha review.
What Is Seeking Alpha and How Does It Work?
Seeking Alpha is a large investing community where investors of all types can share ideas, articles, tips, strategies, and opinions on investing. Furthermore, they are a central hub for investors to find and analyze different investments. If you're looking at a particular company, you can see all that company's information related to investing such as the price, market cap, growth ratios, balance sheet, income statement, etc.
Investments discussed on Seeking Alpha include:
- Stocks
- Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)
- Mutual Funds
- Commodities
- Cryptocurrency
- Thousands of small cap stocks not discussed elsewhere
Seeking Alpha is “Written by investors for investors, more than 7,000 contributors publish 10,000 investing ideas every month.”
They offer a free subscription and a premium subscription, where the free membership offers basic access to articles, ideas, company analysis and news. The premium membership offers in-depth opinions, stock lists, trending topics, trading ideas, and in depth company analytics for a small monthly fee of $29.99/month.
How Reliable Is the Information on Seeking Alpha?
When it comes to company data and fundamental analysis, there's no question on the integrity of the data. It's as reliable if not more reliable than any other source available such as Yahoo Finance, MarketWatch, Bloomberg, The Motley Fool, etc.
However, anyone with an account can publish an article on Seeking Alpha. So how reliable is that information?
If a writer decides to write an article, their content will most likely be seen by that person's followers within Seeking Alpha's platform. Much like social media posts are seen in the feed of that person's friends.
However, writers can also write articles that are exclusive to the platform and get paid on it, but it first needs to go through an editorial review before being published.
In other words, most of the content on Seeking Alpha is edited by their editing team to ensure it meets certain standards, and if it's not, most likely those articles are only seen by the authors followers, if any.
So, how reliable is the information on Seeking Alpha? Well, how do any of us know how reliable any information is about the stock market. The more of a following, the more sources, and the higher reputation of the author gives you signs of how credible the content is. With that said, you be the judge, just like any other article you read on the internet.
Seeking Alpha Premium Subscription
Is it worth paying the $29.99/month fee to become a premium member of Seeking Alpha? My personal opinion on the platform is mainly positive. What I like most about the premium services is the way in which all the data is laid out for a stock company.
Most people probably use Yahoo Finance as their source of company data, which can sometimes be organized inconveniently depending on the data you need.
It seems as though there is always a ratio or number you want but isn't published on Yahoo Finance. Seeking Alpha, on the other hand, has made it extremely easy for me to view all the fundamentals in one convenient location and organized so it's easy to find. This was a major positive benefit in my opinion. Here are many of the other benefits of being a premium subscriber to Seeking Alpha:
Find New Investment Ideas
As a premium member of Seeking Alpha, you get access to a variety of tools that help you find new investing ideas. This means anything from notable calls or other investment ideas from fund managers and investing experts, to finding stocks that are similar and related to companies that you already own.
Other resources to help discover new investing ideas are access to alerts on upgrades or downgrades on company quant ratings and author ratings. You'll know when analysts change their status of a company from Bullish to Bearish, and anything in between.
Researching Stocks
Researching stocks is highly dependent on the information you can find from credible sources. Premium members get unlimited access to articles, strategies, opinions, and other comments on nearly every publicly listed company.
You can also access all the important data for each company such as company financials, investing ratios, history of company data and even transcripts or audio recordings of recent earnings calls from the respective company you are researching.
If you have a handful of companies that you are looking at, you can use resources on Seeking Alpha that allow you to compare up to six stocks or funds side by side. You can view things like key company information and data, analyst and author ratings and other graded research reports to help make informed investment decisions.
Want to do even more in-depth analysis of a company? You can research a company's financials as far back as 10 years as a premium member of Seeking Alpha.
Manage Your Portfolio
To make Seeking Alpha customized to your investment portfolio, you can create a portfolio on Seeking Alpha that includes all the stocks that you currently own. This allows you to get stock ratings on the companies you own to stay informed.
Within your stock portfolio, you can also see the factor grades which shows you the grade for value, growth profitability, momentum, and earnings per share revisions.
Top Stock Lists
This feature lets you see multiple lists comprised of top stocks for different sectors, dividends, growth stocks, etc. If you're looking for the top-rated stocks based on quant factors and author ratings, you can view that prebuilt list with details on why each stock is included.
Other popular lists of top stocks are top rated dividend stocks, top yield monsters (stocks yielding more than 6%), top growth stocks, top value stocks, top small cap stocks, top stocks by quant, top REITs, and top stocks for all the sectors of the market.
Within the “Top Stocks” feature, you can build out your own lists with the stock screening tool as well.
Authors & Podcasts
Seeking Alpha can also be viewed as a sort of social platform for investment enthusiasts. If you like the content from a specific author, you can start following them to get regular updates when they publish new articles.
Furthermore, as a premium subscriber you get access to different investing and stock market podcasts. If you really like the content of a particular podcast, you can also follow that podcast to get updates on their new content as well.
Is the Seeking Alpha Premium Membership Worth It?
In short, absolutely. Why? Because it aggregates all the investment data that you need to make informed investment decisions all in one place. It lays out the data in easy to read and easy to find formats and allows you to get opinions and comments from other consumer investors as well as expert analysts.
Furthermore, you get access to ratings and public opinions that you just can't find anywhere else. Should you decide you want to publish your own opinion on a company or fund, you can publish it exclusively to Seeking Alpha and potentially make some extra money if it's popular.
Seeking Alpha Alternatives
Perhaps the closest alternative to Seeking Alpha is either Yahoo Finance Premium or The Motley Fool Stock Advisor. Each are slightly different but offer unique insights to aid your stock investment portfolio.
Some alternative options to Seeking Alpha are:
