5 Best Stock Research Websites
With the Fed increasing interest rate and the stock market experiencing non-stop red days, many investors are looking for a solid and sound companies to invest in, instead of memes and hype stocks like what most did a year ago, when Gamestop and Palantir were dominating the conversions in investing boards. As the great Warren Buffett once said, if you want to invest in your future and not gambling away your life-saving, value investing is your answer.
Currently there are many stock research websites on the market, maybe too many for a normal users to choose from. These websites can be very different from each other, with each specializing in a specific investing topic. For example, one may focus on financial modeling, one has very comprehensive and up-to-date news, one may give you details about what institutional and retail invesstors are thinking about a particular stock. Therefore it is important that you do some research to figure out what information you need and which platform will give you a competitive edge in investing. In this blog post, we list out the 5 best stock research websites available for retail investors. These websites are widely used by the finance community here at Columbia University.
1. ValueInvesting.io
ValueInvesting.io is a comprehensive value investing platform. Their speciality is providing accurate intrinsic value for global stocks using DCF and WACC. They streamline the entire model-building process so that you can see the results for any stocks without having to manually build the models yourself. With these pre-built DCF and intrinsic value, you can quickly scan for undervalued/overvalued stocks and make informed value investing decisions.
ValueInvesting.io only uses public and trust-worthy data sources in building their DCF and WCC models so you can rest assure their valuation result is as close as it gets to the intrinsic value of a stock. Beyond valuation models, they also offer a full suite of resources for users to research stocks such as stock screener, watchlist, earnings calendar, advanced charting, etc...
Pricing: regional plan is $14.99/month, global plan is $42.99/month
2. AlphaResearch
AlphaResearch has a totally different approach in helping users researching stocks. They believe in the power of information and unstructured data in SEC filings. These filings usually contains a tons of useful information about the company's financial performance, future plan and how the executives think about the prospect of the company. Since these documents are required by SEC, the content is usually super comprehensive and trust-worthy.
The biggest problem with these document is they are long, overwhelming to read and there are a lot of them. The Edgar database is not really user-friendly while the existing solutions on the markets like AlphaSense and Sentieo can cost a fortune to use. This is where AlphaResearch comes in. Utilizing advanced AI and NLP techniques, they let users search through millions of documents to find the information you need. Think about Google but specialize in financial documents, that is exactly what AlphaResearch is. Documents that you can search using AlphaResearch are:
Another selling point of AlphaResearch is its price. At just $99/month, you have access to the full state-of-the-art search functionality plus a full suite of resources like global equity, spreadsheet add-on, stock screener, etc... to help you do deep research for any company. Here are a few free examples you can try ou
Pricing: pricing is $99/month for retail customers.
3. Finsheet
Finsheet is slightly different from other platforms in this list as they totally rely on you to make the best investing decision. What they do is offerring accurate and comprehensive financial data for you to do so. Their data quality is top-notch as it is also used by hedge funds and financial institutions all around the world. They support both Excel and Google Sheet so you can have access to their high-quality financial data wherever you are.
The asset classes coverage of Finsheet is also super impressive. They have stocks, ETFs, Mutual Funds and fixed income. They also have a tons of fundamentals, financial ratios and metrics data. Finsheet is definitely worth a try if you want to use the power of data to outperform the market.
Pricing: pricing starts at $20/month
4. SeekingAlpha
SeekingAlpha needs no introduction. It is one of the most established and popular stock websites available. SeekingAlpha focuses on providing high-quality articles and resources so that users can get up-to-date information about the stock market. Many people contribute to those articles, from SeekingAlpha staff to retail investors like you and me.
When someone writes an article on SeekingAlpha, he/she will also provide a rating for the company of interested. This rating is kind of similar to the one Wall St analysts give to a stocks (Buy, Neutral, Sell). In that article, authors will use data and public information to defend their stand. The community can provide feedback and comments and there are a lot of healthy discussions happening in top articles on SeekingAlpha. Besides articles, SeekingAlpha also offers charts, stock alerts, personalized analysis, etc... if you are a paid customer.
Pricing: price of the Pro plan is $299/month.
5. Atom.finance
Atom is a extremely popular stock platform on the market. They have raised more than $46 mil with the purpose of being the Bloomberg Terminal for retail investors. While the functionalities of Atom is nowhere near Bloomberg, it does offer a helpful and unique platform for users to research stock.
With Atom, users have access to a tons of information to make better investment decisions. They provide data for the overall market as well as individual companies. Some of the resources you can access with Atom are up-to-date news, financial statements, Wall St estimates, real-time prices, SEC filings and earning transcripts. Their search functionalities are not as good as AlphaResearch's ones but they are good enough for new investors. The nice thing about Atom is you can link your stock portfolio from other brokers to Atom so that you can keep track of your investments and trades all in one place.
Pricing: free plan is already pretty good. Their premium plan at $9.99/month offering users advanced search tools and personalized market analysis.
Final remark
Those are the 5 websites we think can really help you take your stock research to the next level. If you think we’ve missed out a stock research tool, please let us know.