6 Best Stock Picking Services

What are the best stock picking services? That depends on what kind of trader you are.

Most traders fall into two camps: passive and active. Passive traders tend to follow a buy-and-hold strategy.

They add stocks to their portfolios and then wait for their investments’ value to grow. They don’t tinker with their investments. They trust the market to do the work for them. Most of the time, they end up making money over a few decades.

Active investors take the opposite approach. They spend a lot of time learning about stocks so they can maximize their short-term and long-term profits.

Many active investors will also look for ways to make money quickly from the stock market. For example, they will buy an undervalued stock and sell it a few days later when the stock reaches its potential.

Obviously, active investing takes a lot more work than passive investing. You can, however, use the top trade picking services to help you make more money without spending hours a day reading about stocks, bonds, and other assets.

The following article will help you choose a stock picking service that works for you. You’ll start by learning what to look for in a stock picking service. Then, you will get reviews for seven of the best stock picking services to help you decide which one meets your needs best.

Stock Picking Services: What to Look For

The stock picking service that you choose will depend on your investment strategy. Investors looking for long-term growth, for example, might like Motley Fool. Those who want to see what some of the world’s most successful investors are doing might prefer Financhill Smart Money.

No matter how you plan to invest your money, you need to look for three features in a stock picking services.

Track Record

A service’s track record tells you how well it has helped other investors make money. All stock pickers make incorrect predictions from time to time.

You want to find an option with above-average results. If its clients consistently make money, then it’s probably a pretty good stock picking service.

Integrity

Stock picking services have plenty of opportunities to skew their results to attract users. You do not want to use a service that misleads investors. You need a service dedicated to integrity.

When you look at the integrity of best stock picking services, you will see that they never do things like:

• Record profits before they have it.
• Closing winners but leaving losing trades open and recording only closing trades
• Hypothetical back-tested claims without real world proof

You want a stock picking service that will give you straightforward, honest advice. Any breach of integrity shows that the service is willing to bend – or break – the rules to take advantage of investors.

Experience

Would you trust a doctor or lawyer who only has a few days of experience? Of course not! You want a seasoned professional with the wisdom to make good decisions.

Experience matters when you choose a stock picking service, too. Look for traders who can show you several years of successful investing.

Warren Buffett’s Annual Letter

Warren Buffett is the type of investor who gets involved when he buys stock. He doesn’t sit on the sidelines watching passively but instead scrutinizes every line item of financial statements. He evaluates the competitive landscape, the sustainability of profits, and the tendency of consumers to stay loyal to a brand among other factors.

That’s how he managed to become one of the wealthiest people in the world (he’s worth about $66 billion).

Each year, Warren Buffett publishes a letter to shareholders of his company (Berkshire Hathaway). Every letter includes in-depth investigations that show how Berkshire Hathaway aims to outperform without taking undue risk.

The letter isn’t a short list of stocks that you should consider buying. It’s a detailed analysis of why Berkshire Hathaway believes the values of selected companies will improve over the long term.

The best part is that Buffett shares the letter with everyone. You don’t have to invest in his business to get advice from a billionaire. Just go to his website and download the letters for free.

You can get free advice from one of the richest persons in the world. Why wouldn’t you take advantage of that?

Motley Fool

Motley Fool does more than give financial and budgeting advice to consumers. The website also has a stock picking service called Stock Advisor.

The Gardner brothers who founded Motley Fool are dedicated to helping investors choose stocks that will grow over time. So far, it has a pretty impressive track record.

Motley Fool stands out for its integrity. Before it lets you sign up for stock recommendations, it asks you to agree to three investing principles:

1. Own at least 15 stocks.
2. Hold your stocks for at least 5 years.
3. Expect market downturns every 5 years.

That’s the kind of realistic advice you want from one of the best stock trading services.

Motley Fool Stock Advisor costs $79 per year. In return, you get frequent updates about potentially hot stocks as well as stocks currently priced under $50. No matter how much money you want to put into your portfolio, Motley Fool Stock Advisor has options for you.

Financhill Smart Money

Financhill Smart Money brings together advice from some of the world’s most successful investors. When you sign up, you get to see the portfolios of billionaires like:

• Warren Buffett (net worth: $66.7 billion)
• Carl Icahn (net worth: $14.6 billion)
• Seth Klarman (net worth: $1.5 billion)

These investors have long track records of picking winners, so you can peek over their shoulders to find potentially interesting investment opportunities.

Each investor takes a slightly different approach to growing wealth. That means you can choose someone with an investment philosophy that lines up with your own.

You can also mix and match portfolio ideas from multiple billionaires and millionaires. Financhill Smart Money features portfolios from some of the smartest, wealthiest people in the world. Why limit yourself to one?

Some companies would charge an arm and a leg to give you advice from the world’s top investors. Not Financhill. The website lets you access some free stock tools.

For Platinum Access, you can get a seven-day trial for just $7. After your seven-day trial, you pay $397 per quarter. That’s a steal for some of the best investment advice and tools on the market, period.

Action Alerts PLUS: Jim Cramer

Jim Cramer became famous by yelling about stocks on CNBC. He’s much more than a showman, though. Before his television show, he worked for Goldman Sachs and ran a successful hedge fund. In other words, Cramer knows what he’s talking (sometimes yelling) about.

Cramer hands out a lot of good advice on his show, Mad Money, and his website, thestreet.com. For more detailed reports and insider information, though, you need to sign up for his premium service.

Action Alerts PLUS gives you real-time trading alerts, market insights, and an investment index that matches your preferred investing style. Whether you want to grow your wealth over the next few decades or the next few weeks, Cramer can help make you successful.

A subscription to Action Alerts PLUS costs $59.95 a month, but you can lower the price by paying for a year or two at once. Also, you can get a two-week trial to help you decide whether you want to spend the money on advice instead of using the cash to buy more stocks.

Shadowtrader.net

Shadowtrader.net takes an interesting approach to investing that includes deep insights from professionals in options, stocks, futures, FX, and pairs trading. You even get an exclusive video course about trading psychology that comes with a one-on-one consultation.

If you’re looking for educational material that helps you evaluate your own portfolio instead of always taking advice from the pros, Shadow Trader is a great option. Keep in mind that you still get stock recommendations, but you also get the tools that you need to evaluate the advice.

ShadowTrader sells individual courses. The Beginner Options Advisory course, for example, costs $49 per month. The WindowTrader Market Profile Software course requires a one-time payment of $150.

If you’re a hardcore day trader, Shadowtrader is probably best for you. You’ll receive “What’s Peter thinking?” voice alerts each day, twice a day, as well as post market live streams, and a multitude of YouTube videos.

Finbox.io

Finbox.io isn’t as hands-on as some of the best stock picking services, but it does give you a lot of information that will make it easier to grow wealth. For example, you can access more than 900 million data points about stocks on over 135 exchanges.

The interface makes it pretty easy to navigate so you can focus on the data you need; it’s not too overwhelming.

Finbox has several membership options, so you can choose one that fits your budget. Beginners spend $10 per month on basic services like fair value estimates and data points for U.S. stocks.

Professional traders can pay $58 per month to access all of the site’s services.

Best Stock Picking Services: Conclusion

Stock prices can move a lot throughout a day. More movement is often a good thing for day traders and options traders. If you make the right choices, you can buy stocks low and sell high to make money quickly.

Volatility, however, also creates risk. You never know when a stock’s value will fall further than you expect.

You can help limit your investment risk by using the best stock picking services. Nothing can guarantee that you make money today, but the advice of professional traders can certainly help you make better decisions. Keep in mind that trading often involves short-term and long-term strategies. Strike a balance in your portfolio to make the most of your investment opportunities.

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The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Financhill has a disclosure policy. This post may contain affiliate links or links from our sponsors.