There are so many financial sites floating around out there in the ether that it can be hard to decide who to listen to. And you’re busy. You have better things to do than click around all day to figure it out.
Well, apparently we don’t. So we’ve done the clicking around for you, and found the top five awesome finance sites that will leave you better informed about stocks, financial news, and investing in general.
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Marketwatch:
OK, so you probably know about this one already. Still, Marketwatch gives you free, fingers-on-pulse, up-to-the-minute news and stock info. Better still, their easy-to-read story briefs and market pulse tab make it quick and easy to monitor stock changes and potentially important market news. If you’re a habitual ticker-checker, this one’s for you.
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Tradingview:
Tradingview is a powerful (and free) tool that every serious investor should have bookmarked. It’s not as intuitive or easy to use as Marketwatch or some others, but the sheer volume of data is incredible. One of our favorite features of Tradingview is the ability to easily click on different stocks and see the top headlines pop up in the corner of the screen. If you are planning on using Tradingview, or even one of their paid services like pro, pro+, or premium, definitely invest some time into learning how to use it to its full capacity. There is a staggering amount of information here at your disposal.
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The Street:
You’ve likely heard of this one as well, but TheStreet gives you news commentary, opinion pieces, and investment advice from none other than Jim Cramer of Mad Money fame. He co-founded the site back in 1996 during the early days of the Internet. In addition to the expected literature around stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, Bitcoin and the like, you’ll also find information around personal finance, retirement planning, emerging technologies…you name it. Really, if you can think of something finance-related, you’ll probably find it here.
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Firstrade:
Firstrade is a low-cost brokerage firm for trading stocks, ETFs, mutual funds and options. What sets them apart is that as of August of this year, they have completely eliminated commissions in all of those categories. There’s also educational material available to get you up to speed on all of your investment options, as well as information and tools on retirement planning. They may not be as comprehensive in this area as some other well-known brokerages (like Charles Schwab), but if you’re looking for free trading, look no further.
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Seeking Alpha:
Seeking Alpha does something a little different: it’s a crowd-sourced content service for financial markets. Not really generating content of their own, Seeking Alpha serves as an aggregator for financial wisdom from independent contributors. Getting advice from thousands of different contributors may seem like a sure path to money mayhem, but don’t judge too quickly. In 2014, researchers from City University of Hong Kong, Purdue and Georgia Tech analyzed ~100,000 Seeking Alpha articles, and found that views expressed in those articles predicted future stock returns over every time period they examined (between 1M and 3Y). Making consistently accurate predictions is nearly impossible so this is definitely one to take a look at.