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So, what are all the Seeking Alpha alternatives?
Are they better than Seeking Alpha?
Which stock research platform is the right one for you?
Stock Rover
Stock Rover was built because the founders got frustrated about going through multiple websites for financial data and creating many separate spreadsheets to do stock analysis.
The key selling points of Stock Rover are its stock screener, “tables” and stock ratings.
When it comes to fundamental and financial data, Stock Rover is probably one of the best because it provides over 650 metrics.
Stock Rover’s metrics cover a wide range of areas such as earnings, growth, profitability, financial strength, capital efficiency, price performance, momentum, dividends, analyst ratings, and stock ratings.
Basically, you have ALL the financial and fundamental data on any US & Canada Stocks in one place.
Most metrics come with a detailed 10-year history for you to get a complete picture of how the company has been doing.
For investors who like to do comparison analysis in an excel sheet, you would love Stock Rover’s “Table”.
Because “Table” has made it completely effortless for you by populating all the financial data there automatically. 
Stock Rover also gives you stock ratings on factors such as “Value”, “Growth”, “Momentum”, “Financial Strength”, and “Dividend”.
It presents its data in graphical format and makes it very easy for you to compare stocks in the same sector.
In terms of stock screeners, Stock Rover has one of the best fundamental stock screeners with more than 550 filters for you to mix and match.
There are also pre-defined stock screeners based on well-known investment strategies.
So, if you are a serious investor who likes to do your own fundamental research on stocks, then you should definitely try out all the Stock Rover features and tools for free and see if it is the right fit for you.
Which is better, Stock Rover or Seeking Alpha?
Both Stock Rover and Seeking Alpha give you all the stock financial and fundamental data, stock ratings, stock screener, and portfolio management tools.
Stock Rover’s fundamental stock screener is much better than Seeking Alpha’s.
Also, Stock Rover has more powerful portfolio management and analytics tools that make portfolio rebalancing and future dividend income tracking easier and simpler.
But, there are some aspects that Seeking Alpha is better than Stock Rover.
Seeking Alpha gives you all the latest news (Economy, IPO, M&A, etc), notable calls (Wall Street analyst’s latest recommendations), earnings call transcripts and etc.
When you do research on individual stocks, you have all the in-depth stock analysis (done by Seeking Alpha’s contributors).
Lastly, you get Seeking Alpha’s proprietary Strong Buy Quant Rating.
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AAII
One of the most useful tools you get from your AAII (American Association Of Individual Investors) membership and A+ Investor is its stock screener. AAII stock screener not only helps you save A LOT of time in your stock research, but its pre-developed stock screens also give you good investment ideas based on popular stock strategies. 
There are a few types of stock screeners available:
- Stock Grade Screen
- Guru Screens
- ETF Screener
- Mutual Fund Screener
AAII‘s stock grades are a bit similar to Seeking Alpha’s factor grades.
Here’s how AAII’s stock grades work. Stock Grade is a stock-grading system based on percentile rankings of multiple key metrics within five investment factors: Value, Growth, Momentum, EPS revisions, and Quality.
For each stock, a grade of A-F is assigned for each of the five factors with “A” being the best and “F” being the worst.
There is a key difference between how AAII and Seeking Alpha calculate their factor grade.
AAII compares a stock’s metrics to the same metrics for all the other stocks in the stock market. Seeking Alpha compares a stock’s metrics to the same metrics for the other stocks in its sector.
Personally, I feel Seeking Alpha’s methodology makes more sense because companies from different industries (or sectors) have very different characteristics and economics.
It is more relevant to compare stocks with other stocks in the same sectors.
Simply Wall Street
Simply Wall Street is a stock research and analysis platform that covers about 150,000 stocks worldwide.
The main feature of Simply Wall Street is its stock research reports.
All the stock analysis reports are generated automatically in the same format, using data from company financials as well as analysts’ revenue estimates.
The advantage of these research reports is that it’s very easy to read and gives you a basic and general understanding of the underlying company.
However, there is no independent thinking there.
This is also not like the in-depth analysis you would expect from analysts with years of industry experience.
Simply Wall Street also provides a stock screener.
Again, this stock screener is very simple with very few filters for you to choose from. So, I am not too thrilled about this stock screening tool.
Seeking Alpha alternative: Morningstar
What is unique to Morningstar are its analyst research reports and its ratings.
Morningstar adopts a stock-picking approach that focuses on long-term advantages and intrinsic value.
To help you determine when is a good time to buy, Morningstar also gives you a list of stocks with “5 Star Ratings” as well as a list of stocks with “Wide-Moat”.
5-Star Stocks
This is a list of stocks that are rated 5 stars.
To get rated 5 stars, the stock must be trading meaningfully below the estimated fair value that is calculated by Morningstar’s analysts.
To help you understand better its rating system, a 3-star rating means the stock is trading near the estimated fair value while a 1- and 2-star rating means the stocks are trading meaningfully above the estimated fair value.
Wide-Moat Stocks
You will also get access to its list of wide-moat stocks.
So, what is considered “wide-moat stocks”?
Only companies that have competitive advantages over their competitors will fall under this category.
What Is Economic Moat?
Economic moat refers to a business’s ability to have a sustainable competitive advantage over its competitors.
So, it will enjoy higher profits over its competitors in the long term.
A typical example of a competitive advantage is a low-cost advantage.
Due to its size and retailer strength, Walmart can undercut most of its competitors by offering a wide selection and low prices.
Companies can develop a competitive advantage through product/service differentiation as well.
This can happen only when the company has a value and unique offering that its customers want and cannot get from somewhere else.
For example, Rolex differentiates itself by having a value brand. And Amazon Prime uses speed as its competitive advantage. Inside “Morningstar Premium“, you will see a rating on the economic moat of all the stocks it covers:
- Wide Moat (highest)
- Narrow Moat
- None (lowest)
So, companies with the highest moat rating have the most sustainable competitive advantages, thus the greatest potential for future price appreciation.
I would say that Morningstar is a very safe and good choice for long-term value investors who want to find undervalued high-quality companies for their long-term investments.
You can give Morningstar Premium a try for free for 7 days!
Also, you can take $50 OFF Morningstar Premium if you decide it’s a good fit for you.
Try Morningstar Premium For 7 Days Risk-Free
Zacks
The biggest selling point is Zacks #1 Rank.
Zacks’ stock ranking methodology is based entirely on its CEO, Len Zacks’ belief that “Earnings estimate revisions are the most powerful force impacting stock prices.”
It goes like this. If the stock’s earnings estimate is revised higher, then the Zacks’ rank of the stock will be high.
Conversely, if the stock’s earnings estimate is revised lower, then the Zacks’ rank of the stock will be low.
Earnings estimate revision would most probably impact stock prices.
But, there are so many other factors that also influence stock prices.
Is it the most powerful factor?
Well, I am not so sure.
So far, I have not seen any research done to back up this claim.
Anyway, there are a total of 5 different ranks:
- Zacks Rank #1 (i.e. Strong Buy)
- Zacks Rank #2 (i.e. Buy)
- Zacks Rank #3 (i.e. Hold)
- Zacks Rank #4 (i.e. Sell)
- Zacks Rank #5 (i.e. Strong Sell)
These stock ratings are ONLY for short-term trading (i.e. the next 1 to 3 months), but not for long-term investment.
Here’s why.
Publicly traded companies are only required to report their quarterly earnings.
So, the “earnings estimate revisions” indicator that Zacks uses is only valid for at most one quarter.
Now, how have Zack’s #1 Rank stocks performed?
According to its website, a hypothetical portfolio consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank # 1 Strong Buy stocks had an average annual return of 24.8%, compared to an average annual return of 10.9% for the S&P 500 from Jan 1, 1988, to May 2, 2022.
That is very impressive for a hypothetical portfolio.
Naturally, I wanted to find out how they actually measured the performance and whether or not it reflected the true performance.
From its disclosure on its website, I learned that this hypothetical portfolio was rebalanced monthly from Jan 1, 1988, to Dec 31th, 2013, and thereafter rebalanced weekly from Dec 31st, 2013 to April 2nd, 2018, with zero transaction costs.
It didn’t give any explanation for why it suddenly changed from rebalancing monthly to weekly.
Also, there are a lot of issues with the way the returns are calculated from this hypothetical portfolio.
First of all, transaction costs are considered zero, which was not true back then.
When you buy and sell shares, there is also the bid-ask spread you have to pay.
If you take all these into account, this will reduce the returns.
In other words, the actual returns would be less.
Secondly, to measure the actual performance of Zacks’ Rank # 1 Strong Buy, shouldn’t you buy all these stocks the minute they become Zack Rank # 1 Strong Buy and sell them immediately after they are not?
Rebalancing monthly or weekly doesn’t reflect the true performance at all.
All in all, I have reservations about the results on its website.
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