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Are you looking for the best stock picking services to help you improve your performance and increase your profits?
How do you actually tell if a stock picking service is actually good and credible?
This is an important question because you are not only going to invest in their service but also actually going to risk your hard-earned money trading off their stock tips.
So, in this article, I am going to share with you everything you need to know to make an informed decision because you don’t want to choose a stock picking service that is not the right fit for you, or worse, might even cause you to lose money.
How To Choose The Best Stock Picking Service
First of all, to help you find a stock-picking service that is the most suitable for you, you need to know what you really want from their stock-picking service.
Are you looking for good intra-day or swing trading ideas to make a quick profit buying and selling stocks?
Or are you looking for good stock recommendations for long-term investment?
Basically, you need to ask yourself if you are a short-term stock trader or a serious long-term investor.
Now, how do you tell if a stock-picking service is good?
Here are a few criteria that you can use to determine if a stock-picking service is good or not.
- Credentials of expert (i.e. Who are the experts you are taking stock advice from? Are they qualified to give stock recommendations?)
- Stock-picking strategy (i.e. What is their strategy for picking the stocks that they are so optimistic about? Is it a sound strategy?)
- Past track record (i.e. What are their past track records? Have people actually made money following their stock recommendations?)
- Reviews (i.e. What are their reviews? What did the clients say about their stock picking service? Are they satisfied with it?)
- Free Trial (i.e. Do they offer any free trial for their service? There should always be a free trial or money-back guarantee for their service if they are confident that people will really get value from it)
With these criteria in mind, let’s take a look at the best stock-picking services in the market.
Seeking Alpha Premium
Seeking Alpha provides you with stock picks based on its proprietary Quant Ratings.
Whether you are looking for the best Value stocks, best Growth stocks, best Technology stocks, or best Dividend stocks, Seeking Alpha makes it very simple and easy for you.
There are three different types of ratings that you can find on Seeking Alpha:
- SA Author Ratings ‒ ranging from Strong Buy to Strong Sell
- Wall Street Ratings – consensus and price targets on the stock by Wall Street Analysts
- Quant Ratings ‒ based on over 100 metrics, updated daily
The most interesting of all is its proprietary Quant rating.
It was developed by CressCap, quantitative analytics and data platform that was acquired by Seeking Alpha.
So, what exactly is Quant Rating, and also how does it really work?
Seeking Alpha’s Quant Rating is derived after taking into account the following five “Factor Grades”:
- Value
- Growth
- Profitability
- Momentum
- EPS Revisions
The Factor Grade is determined by comparing the relevant metrics for the factor for the stock to those for the other stocks in the same sector.
For example, to determine the grade for the “Growth” factor, metrics such as past sales growth, projected earnings growth, and stock price performance for the stock will be compared to the same metrics for the other stocks in the same sector.
Then, each factor is assigned a grade, from A+ to F.
Grade A+ means that the stock has the highest growth potential compared to its peers in the same sector.
On the other hand, a grade of F means that the stock has the lowest growth potential compared to its peers in the same sector.
In total, Seeking Alpha’s Quant rating is derived by comparing over 100 metrics for the stock to the same metrics for the other stocks in its sector.
There are five types of Quant ratings:
- Strong Sell (i.e. a score of 1)
- Sell (i.e. a score of 2)
- Hold (i.e. a score of 3)
- Buy (i.e. a score of 4)
- Strong Buy (i.e. a score of 5)
So, how have Seeking Alpha’s Strong Buy Quant Ratings performed, compared with S&P 500?
Do take note that the performance is based on backtesting.
From 2010 to 2022, Seeking Alpha Strong Buy achieved a total return of $174,156 based on $10,000 investment capital while S&P 500 achieved a total return of $40,721.
Apart from Seeking Alpha Quant Ratings, you also get tons of useful financial and fundamental information (i.e. Earnings, Valuation, Growth, Profitability, Peers, Dividend, etc) and news and analysis on the stocks that you are researching or stocks that you own in your portfolio all in one place.
For Seeking Alpha, there are three types of pricing plans:
- Basic: Free
- Seeking Alpha Premium:
$239/year$189/year - Seeking Alpha Pro: $2400/ year (mostly for hedge fund managers)
Right now, there is a free 7-day trial for you to test drive it and see if it works for you. If you decide to get it, there is a special $50 discount for you by using this link.
With the basic free version, you can only get very limited access to Seeking Alpha stock in-depth news and analysis.
You also won’t get access to Seeking Alpha Author Rating and Quant Rating, Top-rated stocks, and all the premium stock analyses.
So, is it worth paying for Seeking Alpha Premium?
$189/year works out to be about $15.75/month (i.e. $0.53/day).
A cup of Starbucks coffee costs about $2.75.
Personally, I have been using Seeking Alpha Premium for my own stock research and analysis.
[Limited Time Only] Claim Your $50 OFF Seeking Alpha Premium & Try It For 7 Days Free
Motley Fool Stock Advisor
One of the most popular stock-picking services is definitely Motley Fool Stock Advisor.
I personally use it to find investment ideas as well.
So, what is their track record?
Below is the performance comparison between Motley Fool Stock Advisor and S&P 500 between 2002 and 12th March 2024.
As of 12th March 2024, average Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendations have returned over 510% since inception while the S&P 500 has returned 132%.
In short, the Motley Fool Stock Advisor has outperformed the market 3 to 1.
But, what about its individual stock picks?
This metric is important because I might not be buying every single stock recommendation made by the Motley Fool Stock Advisor.
Below is a table that shows you the performance of individual stock picks over the years.
As of 6th September 2023, Motley Fool Stock Advisor has had 173 stock recommendations with 100%+ returns.
[Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Individual investment results may vary. All investing involves risk of loss.]
So, how much does Motley Fool Stock Advisor cost?
Its annual membership is only priced at $199 a year.
Right now, there’s a special offer for new members to get the annual membership at $89 per year.
So, for $89 a year- that’s just $1.70 a week – you can gain unlimited access to their library of expert stock recommendations which are carefully selected to help you grow your wealth.
When you sign up for the annual membership, you are protected by The Motley Fool‘s 30-day membership-fee-back guarantee.
What this means is that if you decide Motley Fool Stock Advisor isn’t for you, you can simply cancel your 1-year subscription within the first 30 days (it’s quick and easy to cancel), and you’ll be promptly refunded 100% of your membership fee with no questions asked.
What’s more, everything you see during those 30 days – the expert stock picks, the best buys now, the premium research and reports – are yours to save and keep.
Special $89 Stock Advisor Introductory Offer For New Members (Usual Price $199/year)
Motley Fool Rule Breaker
If you are into growth stock investing, then you should definitely check out Motley Fool Rule Breaker.
It helps you find market-beating growth stocks that are poised to be tomorrow’s stock market leaders.
Just imagine that you invested in Amazon 10 years ago before it became the biggest e-commerce platform in the world.
What would your investment be worth today?
According to CNBC, if you invested $1,000 in Amazon 10 years ago, that $1,000 investment in 2009 would be worth more than $13,300 as of Dec. 9, 2019, for a total return of around 1,232%.
With growth stock investing, you can see that the potential returns are huge.
So, how do you actually find these great growth stocks?
One of the easiest ways is to subscribe to Motley Fool Rule Breaker (highly recommended) which helps you discover market-beating growth stocks that are poised to be tomorrow’s stock market leaders.
Here are a few examples of growth stocks that it recommended to its members.
So, what exactly do you get when you subscribe to Motley Fool Rule Breakers?
As a subscriber, you get access to their entire team of top investment experts and all their best thinking that goes into The Motley Fool’s high-growth investing service.
Every month, you get two new high-growth stock recommendations each month emailed straight to your inbox.
It will walk you through the buying case for a stock, spelling out exactly why a company might be a good addition to your portfolio, as well as the potential risks.
On top of that, you also get Best Buys Now which are the best stock ideas chosen from all the picks in the past.
Also, if you are just starting to invest and trying to build a stock portfolio, you will love the “Starter Stocks” which are a handful of stocks that make a great foundation for any portfolio.
Lastly, it comes with Motley Fool‘s 30-day membership-fee-back guarantee.
So, you can give it a try 100% membership-fee-back guarantee.
If you decide Rule Breakers isn’t for you, simply cancel your subscription within the first 30 days and you’ll be refunded 100% of your membership fee promptly with no questions asked.
Check out the latest promotion for NEW Motley Fool Rule Breakers members here
Trade Ideas
If you are a professional trader who trades US stocks for quick profits, then you should definitely check out Trade Ideas – an Artificial Intelligence trading software that gives you stock trading picks with exactly when to enter and when to exit.
Personally, I think artificial intelligence is the future of trading because it can do so much more and so much faster than humans in terms of scanning the stock market for trade ideas, stock trading simulation, and back-testing trading strategies.
So, how does it actually work?
Holly AI is Trade-Ideas built-in trading robot.
It runs about 50 AI trading strategies.
Every night after the market closes, what Holly artificial intelligence does is that it runs backtests on these strategies for the past 3 months.
Then, it looks at the backtesting results such as equity curve, risk-reward ratio, and drawdown, and subsequently optimizes the strategies.
There are over a million trade scenarios being run by Holly AI overnight.
Once it has done that, it will also take into account the current market condition and look at everything from the fundamentals of the stock to social mentions.
In the end, five to eight trading strategies with the highest win rate will be displayed in the AI Strategies Window before the market open.
What’s more, it also shows you exactly when to enter and when to exit as well as how big or small your trading position should be.
Basically, it gives you a complete trading plan.
The best part about using AI is that it will probably make better trades than you because it manages trades without any emotions.
Now, how is the performance of Holly Artificial Intelligence so far?
In 2018, HOLLY AI’s performance was 94.1% after commissions in Risk-On mode while Holly’s risk-off performance was 32%
The portfolio’s gross return, before commissions and fees, measured 111%.
On the other hand, the S&P 500, measured by the $SPY index, fell 4% over the same period.
So, how do you use Trade Ideas Holly Artificial Intelligence?
You can either follow the trade suggestions made by Holly the A.I. and execute the trades yourself or you can have Holly the A.I. trade for you via Brokerage Plus.
Brokerage Plus is an auto-trading module within Trade Ideas enabling automatic, manual, and semi-automatic portfolio management and trading with your brokers such as Interactive Brokers.
See Full Review Of Trade Ideas Now.
PairTradeFinder
So, what is PairTradeFinder?
Also, what is pair trading and how does it work exactly?
Pairs trading is the original and arguably most successful trading strategy used by hedge funds.
So, how does it work?
You find one pair of stocks that are highly correlated.
That means, that when one of the stocks goes up, there is a very high probability that the other stock will go up as well.
On the other hand, when one of the stocks goes down, there is a very high probability that the other stock will go down as well.
This theory is tested and also research-backed.
So, how do you do pair trading?
If you find two highly correlated stocks where their stock prices are not moving in tandem (e.g. one has gone up by a lot but the other one barely moved or might have gone down), you can buy the stock that has barely moved and short sell the stock that has gone up by a lot.
In a way, you are hedging your risk as well. (yes, pair trading is also one of the proven trading strategies with significantly reduced risk)
So, why does pair trading work?
This is because the relationship between two highly correlated stocks is much more predictable and reliable than the outright prediction of the direction of a particular stock.
That’s also the reason why hedge funds use the Pair Trading methodology.
With PairTradeFinder, it can help you identify high-probability pair trading opportunities quickly before the trading opportunity is gone.
Try PairTradeFinder & Get A 15-Day Free Trial Now
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