If you’re a first-time investor looking to do a little more than throw a few bucks at penny stocks, but still want a cost-efficient way to invest, you will want to look into free stock advisors or free stock picking services. You want to be more informed than the naive investor hoping that tossing money into the void will eventually garner some returns, but you don’t have the hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest in dividend stocks or exclusive mutual funds.
You’ve probably found subscription services that offer insights, but not ones tailored specifically to you. Plus, you may feel hesitant to spend money on a service you’ve never tried. Situations like these have new investors wondering if services like the Motley Fool stock advisor is legit or not.
Luckily, there are stock advisors and stock picking services that have no minimum requirement for your account balance or fees per trade. You can access professional and expert knowledge without the premium costs.
Stock Advisors Versus Stock Picking Services
What does a stock advisor do, and what is a stock picking service? They’re pretty self-explanatory, but there are some key differences between them.
Stock Advisors
A stock advisor is an individual or a company that provides you with customized investing plans and advice. You’ll tell your advisor your financial goals and your budgets, and they’ll offer expert insights on the market, as well as trends and new laws or regulations affecting the market, and advise you based on their expertise. They do the research and portfolio management for you.
This is ideal for the investor who seeks advice that is catered specifically to them and their own goals.
Stock Picking Services
Stock picking services are known by many names, including:
- Stock picking sites
- Stock picking subscriptions
- Stock picking services
The Motley Fool is one example of a stock picking service. These services give subscribers specific stock recommendations by compiling and analyzing stock data sets. These sets can include quarterly earnings, market shares, and more.
Like a stock advisor, these services take the heavy-lifting and strategy off your shoulders. However, they disseminate this information via emails, newsletters, or posts for subscribers. It’s not advice that is individually catered to you, but is instead general insight into the market and stock recommendations.
Factors to Look For in Advising Services
There are numerous free stock advisors and stock picking services to choose from–the Stock Dork, Morningstar, and Seeking Alpha are just a handful of reputable examples.
But what exactly should you look for when choosing a stock advisor or stock picking service? Below, we’ll detail what you need to consider when choosing a basket to put your proverbial eggs in:
Reputation
It’s one thing to be highly regarded by advisors and investors alike, but it’s another to have a proven track record. You want to choose a service that outperforms over extended periods of time, that chooses investments that bring in great returns, and consistently chooses stocks that perform over time.
Transparency
When it comes to your money, you want to invest with services you can trust every step of the way. The service you select should be transparent with their prices (meaning no hidden fees or secret sponsors), should explain how they select their stocks, and should lay out why they select certain stocks. When advisors are not candid with how and why they select the stocks they did, this could mean they have secret sponsors or don’t have facts to support their selections.
Pays for Itself
You won’t be able to invest in every single recommendation, but the ones you do should offset the costs of the investment. If you choose a stock picking service that requires a small subscription fee, you should be able to recoup those costs from the recommendations the service provided. The lower the price of the stock picking service, the higher your profit margin (in theory) will be.
Final Thoughts
We recommend Seeking Alpha for investment research and recommendations, as well as Trade Ideas from Best Day Trader Alert Service. Each of these services offers either free trials, free recommendation options, or low-costs for their services.
However, if you are ready for 100% free, up-to-date market and trading information, investing ideas, education, reviews, and more, look no further than the Stock Dork. We provide thoughtful reviews on advising services, financial news updates, and investment tips for ETFs, cryptocurrencies, penny stocks, and more. This is the perfect way to get started in your investing education.
Looking for more intel, including where stock traders get their news? Check out our latest article for more expert tips.
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