Seeking Alpha review: Is it worth it?

Seeking Alpha is an investment platform that uses crowd-sourced information to produce analysis and expert opinions of stocks, bonds, and other investment options.

With thousands of contributors and millions of users, you will find all types of people on the Seeking Alpha platform – everything from learners to professional investors.

This post looks at what Seeking Alpha offers for both investors and analysts, beginners and experts alike.

Information & Investment Success

The role of valuable information in investment decision-making is undisputed – you need the right information at the right time, to make the most of your capital. But getting that information is the tricky part.

Traditionally, investors relied on newspapers, industry publications, and different journals to get all the market information needed to make informed decisions. The Internet, however, has changed everything by introducing a new set of investment research tools, one of which is the highly popular Seeking Alpha.

Seeking Alpha Highlights

Seeking Alpha is an online investment research platform that aims to provide all the information that you need to make profitable investments cleanly and efficiently. The web platform offers a sidebar that links to all of the site’s major features and the following is a closer look at them.

Free Features

Home: Seeking Alpha’s “Home” dashboard offers its users everything at a glance. From world market information, including indices, commodities, and futures, to the latest business news featuring different markets. Scrolling downward, you get a list of trending analyses and another for trending news. Plus a quick view of your portfolios, top-rated ideas, latest articles, stock ideas, and so on. Yes, there are so many items on Seeking Alpha’s home dash, but it gives you one place to get all your information at once.
Analysis: Switching to the analysis tab brings up articles from Seeking Alpha’s vast community of analysts and their individual takes. All the articles are originally listed, but you can choose specific markets by clicking the sub-tab, such as Basic metals, Biotech, Bonds, Healthcare, Dividends, REITs, and so on.
News: The next tab offers all types of market news, from trending news to Commodities news, IPOs, Commodities, Tech, and politics. You can either read all the different news categories in a single stream or select a specific market from the left sub-bar.
Market Data: This tab lists all the key market information in neat tables for an easy overview. It starts with the Key Market Data sub-tab, which includes US Equities like the S&P 500, the Dow Jones, and so on, as well as US Equity Sectors like technology, US equity factors, global equities, Countries data, bonds, commodities, and currencies. Aside from the key Market Data sub-tab, you can select 15+ other market data for a detailed display, including earnings calendar and real estate.
Investment Groups: This tab presents Seeking Alpha’s community of investment experts and their services. They range from dividend and growth stocks to data-driven portfolios, portfolios that beat the S&P500, unique ideas, gaming stocks, and so on. These services are offered by community members and start from $20 or more per month.

You can browse the different offers until you find what you like or use the filters to choose pricing, the number of reviews, and whether the service offers a free trial or not. You can also sort the results by recommended, trending, most popular, alphabetically, and so on.
Portfolio: The Portfolio tab makes it easy to manage all your portfolios and holdings cleanly and intuitively. Seeking Alpha initially prompts you to enter your portfolio information during registration, and you can additionally link your brokerage account to help the platform keep you up to date with all buying and selling activities or price changes.

You simply name a portfolio and add your different holdings to it, including the number of lots. The system then keeps you updated about your total earnings or losses, as well as relevant market news regarding the instrument. Each portfolio includes a summary tab, a holdings tab, and a rating tab with scores from Seeking Alpha’s analysts, Wall Street, and Quant scores. There are also earnings and dividends tabs.

Premium Features

Seeking Alpha’s modules change from this group of premium tabs. If you are using a free account, then you might either see asset names with locked ratings and other information or the full ratings and investment information might get displayed, while the asset’s name remains blurred.

These premium features include the following.

Top Stocks: Here, you get a quick overview of top-performing stocks rated by so many metrics to help you make informed decisions. These metrics include Seeking Alpha analysts, Quant Ratings, which are objective, data-based ratings, and Wall Street analysts, which are 3rd party sourced information. Other available information includes dividends, earnings, valuation, growth forecasts, profitability, and many more. You can equally search this module using keywords and symbols.
Top ETFs: The Top ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) tab lists the best instruments rated by Seeking Alpha’s objective Quant ratings. There are hundreds of options to choose from here and the list is sorted from highest to lowest rating. Each entry also includes the fund’s AUM, momentum, expenses, risk, and liquidity ratings. Then, there are extra sub-tabs for summary, performance, holdings, dividends, and more.
Stock Screener: Seeking Alpha’s stock screener is an easy-to-use tool that categorizes different stocks to make them easier to pick. There are Top Rated stocks with about 70 results, High Dividend Yield Stocks with about 80 results, Top Technology, and Top Healthcare Stocks each with over a hundred entries. Seeking Alpha has 25+ such groups, making it easy to select stocks that fit your investing strategy.

The module also allows you to create and save custom stock groups called screens, if you like. So, like traditional screeners, you will need to enter your filtering conditions, ratings, and other necessary data to get the custom list that you need.
ETF Screener: The ETF Screener is similar to the Stock Screener, although it has only about 10 previously saved groups or screens. They include Top Commodity ETFs, Top International Equity ETFs, Top U.S. Equity ETFs, Most Shorted Equity ETFs, and so on with some having over 100 entries. The module also allows you to search for items and to create custom screens.
Comparisons: Intuitive and easy to use, Seeking Alpha’s stock comparison tool lets you group two or more stocks together for easy side-by-side comparison. You can create a new comparison with the tool, as well as view previously saved ones such as the FAANG Stocks list, Gold ETFs, and Retail Stocks.

Account Types

Seeking Alpha offers 3 basic account types: Basic, Premium, and Pro. Here is a look at each plan, including what it offers and costs.

Basic: Free account with access to creating a portfolio with real-time stock prices and alerts. You are limited to one free premium article though.
Premium: The Premium plan costs $239 per year and includes access to unlimited premium articles, stock and ETF screeners, various rating tools, and top stocks and ETFs rankings.
Pro: Costs $199 per month or $2400 a year and comes with a VIP service that makes it easy to discover the best investment opportunities and top-quality growth stocks.

Opportunity For Analysts

Over 18,000 people have contributed articles to the Seeking Alpha investment community and you too can contribute if you are a good analyst and writer. Seeking Alpha compensates authors, as well as gives awards for outstanding content. Plus you also have the opportunity of starting your very own investment group on the platform. Check out all the opportunities for analysts here.

Is Seeking Alpha Premium Worth It?

So, you’ve seen all the many features of the Seeking Alpha platform, including its free and premium ones. One natural question, however, is whether its $239 annual subscription plan for the premium plan is worth it.

Everyone is different, so you might have to answer that question for yourself by quickly considering Seeking Alpha’s many features for premium users.

Unlimited Access: Free plans offer limited content, premium plans do not.
Valuable Ratings: Premium users get to see the Wall Street, SA analysis, and Quant Score ratings that make it easier to pick winners.
No Or Limited Ads: Premium members don’t get any ads or disturbances.
Past Performance: You can see the long-term performance of any article’s author.
Brokerage Account Syncing: To automatically stay up to date with your holdings.

Seeking Alpha offers many more premium features and you are free to check them all out with a 7-day free trial. It additionally includes a special introductory offer of $199 for the first year, after which it will cost the regular $239. You can check it out here.

Frequently Asked Questions

The following are some frequently asked questions about the Seeking Alpha investment platform.

Q: Is seeking Alpha for beginners or Pros?

A: Seeking Alpha is great for both beginners and professionals, as you will find everything that you need on the platform.

Q: Is Seeking Alpha’s free plan any good?

A: Yes, the free plan gives you access to many analysis pieces, news, and market data, though limited.

Q: Does Seeking Alpha offer mobile apps?

A: Yes, it has iOS and Android apps.

Q: Who are Seeking Alpha’s contributors?

A: The people who contribute to Seeking Alpha come from different industries and locations. They are hobby and professional investors, writers, and analysts.

Q: Can I make money from using Seeking Alpha?

A: You will definitely make better-informed investments.

Q: Can I buy assets from the Seeking Alpha platform?

A: No, you cannot. You need to have a separate brokerage account.

Conclusion

In rounding off this review of the Seeking Alpha investment research platform, you have seen all the features designed to provide you with the best investment information.
How you proceed from here and whether you use the Basic or Premium plan is up to you. Of course, you can always check things out with their 7-day free trial.