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So, which stock news service is better, The Fly On the Wall or Benzinga?
What are the key differences between them?
How do you actually choose the right stock news service?
Benzinga Pro Vs The Fly On The Wall: News Feed
Both Benzinga Pro and The Fly offers live audio news feed.
Benzinga Pro’s audio news feed is called Squawk Box while The Fly’s audio news feed is called FlyCast.
They both deliver important and actionable market news to help traders trade news events because stocks typically make huge moves during news such as IPO, mergers & acquisitions, trial results, earnings results, and product launches.
However, Benzinga Pro has a much better user interface than The Fly On The Wall.
Benzinga Pro News Feed
First of all, inside Benzinga Pro’s platform, you can use the feature called “News Feeds” to pre-configure the types of news that you want to see.
There are many different filters that you can mix and match.
For example, you can choose from Sources (i.e. SEC, Press Release, etc), Categories (i.e. Economics, M&A, Analyst Rating, IPO, FDA, etc), Screener (i.e. Sector, Market Cap, Price, Volume, etc), and Watchlists.
Using the Watchlists filter, you can choose to see news only related to stocks that you are interested in.
Benzinga also lets you color code it, so you can quickly identify which type of news it is.
Furthermore, you can easily customize alerts in the Newsfeed with different sounds for different categories.
If you prefer a desktop notification to pop up on your screen or an email notification, that can be done as well.
The little green or red arrow(s) between the ticker and the headline is a sentiment indicator that tells you how likely news is to move a stock and in which direction.
Another unique feature is called “Why Is It Moving” which is a one-sentence description as to why that stock is moving.
This tool is helpful when you need to know why a stock is moving, or it’s not immediately clear as to why.
“Why Is It Moving” is quick and concise to help you fill in the gaps.
You can find “Why Is It Moving” at the top of the details when applicable to the stock, and you can also find them by searching or filtering the Newsfeed.
The Fly On The Wall News Feed
On the other hand, The Fly On The Wall does not provide as many filtering and news alert tools as Benzinga Pro.
As shown below, The Fly On The Wall just lists out the news with simple filters and search functions.
Also, The Fly has a function called “My Portfolios”.
What it does is it allows you to create up to 12 portfolios with 150 symbols each and get focused news and information about the companies in your portfolios.
You can add and remove stocks to create portfolios organized by investment goals, industries, and risk levels.
In terms of news feed, I think Benzinga Pro is much better than The Fly On The Wall.
Try Benzinga Pro For Free( no credit card required)
Benzinga Pro Vs The Fly On The Wall: Calendar
Before the market opens, it’s important to check the “Calendar” because you don’t want to get caught by surprise by the big moves in your stocks.
For example, you might want to check if there are any earnings reports on the day or any analyst rating changes.
Both Benzinga and The Fly On the Wall have “Calendar”, but Benzinga’s Calendar tool is more intuitive and covers a wider range of events.
For example, below is all the earnings release for today.
If you like to trade earnings, you might want to put these stocks on your watchlist and see if there are any profitable trade setups later on.
Apart from the earnings calendar, you can see that Benzinga also provides a calendar for other important events:
- Analyst Ratings
- Conference Calls
- Dividends
- Economics
- FDA
- Guidance (e.g. company revenue guidance)
- IPOs
- Mergers & Acquisitions
- Retail Sales
- SEC Filings
- Secondary filings
- Splits
- Unusual Option Activity
On the other hand, The Fly On The Wall’s calendar coverage is not as comprehensive as Benzinga’s.
Also, The Fly’s user interface is not as intuitive and convenient as Benzinga’s.
The Fly’s street research refers to all the Wall Street analyst rating changes as well as recent analyst research reports.
For Benzinga, it seems that it only covers analyst rating change, reiteration, and initiation.
The Fly’s Syndicate covers the IPOs, secondary listings, and block trades as shown in the screenshot below.
On the other hand, Benzinga covers all these events and more.
For example, you can find unusual option activities and insider purchases on Benzinga’s platform.
Also, it’s so much easier and faster to use Benzinga Pro to monitor events and find trading ideas.
Try Benzinga Pro For Free( no credit card required)
Benzinga Pro Vs The Fly On The Wall: Stock Ideas/Stock Research
One last key difference between Benzinga Pro and The Flye On the Wall is that Benzinga Pro provides you with a lot of useful tools to help you find stock trading ideas and also research stocks that you are interested in.
But, you don’t find these tools on The Fly On The Wall platform.
Now, let’s take a look at some of the most popular tools on the Benzinga Pro platform.
The Benzinga Pro Movers tool is designed to help you quickly find out what is moving in the market so you can either
trade it, or do more research.
When a stock sees dramatic price action over a selected duration, the stock will automatically appear on Movers.
This is a valuable tool for spotting new opportunities in real time.
In the pre-market, regular session, or after-hours, you can use this tool to spot which stocks are moving.
Other filters include Sector, Market Cap, Price, Change in price, Previous close, Volume, and Average Volume (3 months).
Benzinga Pro Scanner allows you to scan for stocks that fit your specific criteria in real time.
You can use filters like price, market cap, volume, float, relative volume, short interest, shares outstanding, and more to scan for stocks.
If you don’t want real-time scans, you can also choose refresh rates of 10 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, or no refresh rate to create a static list.
Combined with the real-time news feed as well as data and charts provided by Benzinga Pro, you can easily and quickly create and execute your trading plans.
The Benzinga Pro Signals tool is a great tool for discovering potential trade ideas.
It provides seven different types of signals:
- Price Spike
- Option Activity
- Block Trade
- Halt/Resume
- Opening Gap
- Highs and Lows (e.g. Session, Day Series, and 52-week, etc)
You can select as many or as few of these signals as you like.
On top of that, you can apply custom filters to receive the signals that you want.
Here are a few examples:
- Price Spikes for stocks under $5 with low float
- Opening gap for stocks with a large market cap
Try Benzinga Pro For Free( no credit card required)
Benzinga Pro Vs The Fly On The Wall: Pricing
First, let’s take a look at The Fly On The Wall pricing.
There are two different pricing plans:
- Basic Plan: $44.99/month ( or $37/month if paid annually)
- Full Access: $74.99/month (or $62/month if paid annually)
The difference between the two plans is that the Basic Plan only offers Breaking News, one portfolio (up to 150 stocks), and On the Fly Page while the Full Access Plan gives you everything including Fly Cast Audio, up to 12 Portfolios, Street Research Calendar, Events Calendar, and Syndicate Calendar.
Now, how much does Benzinga Pro cost?
There are three different pricing plans for Benzinga Pro:
- Free
- Benzinga Pro Basic: $37/month
- Benzinga Pro Essential: $197/month (Limited Time Only)
With Benzinga Pro Basic, you get delayed Nasdaq market data, a Full Newsfeed without advanced filtering, chat, Movers, Watchlist alerts, and Benzinga Premium Articles.
On the other hand, Benzinga Pro Essential gives you everything included in Benzinga Pro Basic plus much more.
You get real-time Nasdaq market data, Advanced Newsfeed (filtered by Technicals such as Price, Volume, and Float), Real-time Scanner, Audio Squawk (equity & options), Calendar, Signals, and Usual Options Activity.
If you are a serious trader, then I would recommend Benzinga Pro Essential because speed is everything in trading.
When you act too slowly, you would miss out on the perfect trading opportunities.
Generally, big market moves driven by news happen in a matter of seconds.
So, you need to take advantage of the real-time actionable audio news by Benzinga Pro Essential.
Try Benzinga Pro For Free( no credit card required)
Pricing-wise, I think Benzinga Pro gives you more value for your money because it provides you with a lot of useful tools to find trading ideas such as Stock scanners, Movers, Signals, and Insider purchases.
I strongly recommend that you sign up for a free trial of Benzinga Pro and test it out by yourself.
Every now and then, Benzinga will have very attractive promotional offers emailed to their free trial users. So, if you decide it is a good fit, then you can take advantage of these great offers when they come.
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