There are two basic types of trading, technical and fundamental. Technical trading is based on the price movements of assets over time, whilst fundamental trading relies on research into factors like company performance and growth, to predict price movements.
There are many ways to invest including over the counter (OTC) buying directly from another party or exchange traded stock options (ETF) or investing in companies that offer savings bonds. For those interested in learning more about the stock market below are some online trading platforms South Africa might find useful.
MacroRisk Analytics
MacroRisk Analytics provides you a way to measure the economy’s influence on investment prices. Investment Advisers offers tools to measure downside volatility and insulate against world events. You can also accomplish this without needing to choose economic or political scenarios or guessing the direction of the economy — almost impossible.
Defend against economic risk, navigate through economic turmoil and harness the economy’s power. MacroRisk Analytics’ patented system reliably accounts for 95% of price variation in most stocks, mutual funds and ETFs.
Tap into MacroRisk Analytics today.
Stock Rover
- Who it’s for: Professional investors
- Price: Free to $479.99 bi-annual subscription
Stock Rover is a comprehensive stock analysis and screening tool that gives investors access to high-quality research tools, educational content, expert analysis and more.
Stock Rover goes well beyond standard analysis tools, offering account holders 1 of the most comprehensive sets of screening criteria and research qualifications that we’ve seen. For example, users can filter investment opportunities using over 650 metrics with Premium Plus access.
Stock Rover offers 4 different plan tiers, which can become confusing for new investors who aren’t exactly sure which tools they’ll use. However, free accounts offer a wide range of functionality that gives users a better feel for Stock Rover’s setup, along with a free trial of Premium Plus functionality. Getting started with a Stock Rover account is also exceptionally easy — we were able to open our free account in under 60 seconds.
Yewno Edge
- Who it’s for: Beginner to advanced traders who want customizable workspaces
- Price: Basic package starts at $59 per month, but you can try it free for 14 days
Looking for a new, affordable, and non-traditional way to enhance your trading? Enter Yewno|Edge.
The AI-driven platform will help you save timewhile uncovering opportunities using altnerative data. Some capabilities allow you to click of a button.
Basic components include access to the following:
- A stock watchlist complete with custom fields
- Today’s top movers
- Stock screener with fundamental and alternative data
- News with options to filter based on keywords
- Company profiles and overviews
- Advanced charting to look at current and historical prices
- Filings for public companies
Premium and pro features allow for users to access a custom strategy builder, key developments for stocks you may be watching and portfolio and concept exposures.
Read Benzinga’s full Yewno|Edge Review
8. TradingView
- Who it’s for: All skill levels
- Price: Free to about $40 a month for the most in-depth packages
TradingView is a combination stock screening tool and charting package that offers a more readable charting software than some of the best investing apps on the market.
Featuring a clean and easy-to-master format with over 100 indicators, both new traders and veterans will be able to use TradingView on a day-to-day basis. It even offers cryptocurrency and forex screeners.
Like most other screeners and charting software, TradingView follows a freemium model that offers some tools for free and the most advanced features for a monthly fee.
Novice and moderate traders won’t need to buy a subscription to get some great use out of TradingView’s charting and screening software.
FinViz
- Available: Sign up here
- Price: Free; FinViz*Elite: $24.96/mo if paid annually
Finviz is a stock analysis software that provides free and premium features.
You can join thousands of traders who make more informed decisions with the stock analysis tool’s premium features. This includes access to real-time quotes, advanced visualizations, backtesting, and much more.
Finviz has an intuitive interface which makes it easy for you to find what you’re looking for in seconds. For premium users to the FinViz*Elite service, the platform also includes a variety of charting and tools possibilities such as:
- intraday charts and overlays so you can perform deep technical analysis on stocks like never before
- stock indicators
- drawing tools
- fullscreen layouts
- performance comparison charts
- correlations
- technical studies backtesting
It also includes access to premarket and aftermarket data in all stock features. Further, you can use the service’s enhanced Stock Screener to filter stocks and export the data, create advanced charts, customize the filters and have a statistics view.
Also, by becoming a FinViz*Elite member, you can remove all ads from your platform. Consider signing up and starting a subscription. If you’re not satisfied, you can request a full refund within the first 30-days of subscribing.
Stock Rover
Stock Rover unapologetically described itself as “simply the best investment research platform on the web”. While we don’t necessarily agree that it’s THE absolute best, it’s certainly in the top tier of the field. Although they offer four paid versions, they also have a free version – Stock Rover Free.
The service provides comprehensive information on more than 8,500 North American stocks, plus over 4,000 exchange-traded funds and – incredibly – 40,000 mutual funds. And in a feature you wouldn’t expect to find in free stock analysis software, Stock Rover Free also provides portfolio management and brokerage integration for automated syncing of your portfolios.
You’ll also find multiple charting capabilities, as well as daily analyst ratings and analyst rankings, and in-depth market news, including news on individual companies.
One of the best features of Stock Rover is the ability to trade up to the premium plans if you decide you like the free version but want to take advantage of the many investment tools each plan offers.
For example, by signing up for Stock Rover Essentials, at just $7.99 per month, you’ll have all the features of the Free version, plus fully customizable financial columns, over 260 metrics with five years of detailed historical data, portfolio and watchlist tracking, the full support from the technical team, and access to the Stock Rover Library and guru portfolios, advanced screeners, and other tools.
If this interests you, read our thorough review of Stock Rover for more.
StockCharts.com
StockCharts.com describes itself as “the web’s most advanced, interactive financial charting platform, designed to transform the way you see the markets”. It doesn’t seem that claim is an exaggeration. It provides real-time charting and the industry’s best technical tools and resources on your desktop, laptop, smartphone, or tablet. It’s designed to serve both active and passive traders with advanced scanning tools, award-winning charting and annotation tools, the ability to track your positions and your entire portfolio with ChartLists, and provides custom technical alerts to help you enter or exit your position that the best time.
StockCharts.com offers four different plans, including a free version and three premium plans.
The free version is pretty basic, offering three technical indicators per chart and three technical overlays per chart. The maximum chart width is 900 px. It also comes with the company’s free data plan, which uses BATS real-time data for US markets and delayed data for international markets.
But without a doubt, the free plan is just to whet your appetite for the premium plans, which have a lot more punch. The Basic, Extra and PRO plans run from $14.95 per month to $39.95 per month, but each offers 25 technical indicators and overlays, as well as intraday charting, saved chart storage, saved chart annotations, auto-fresh interval, historical price data back to 1980 (or even 1900 for the PRO plan) and 350 ChartLists per account.
Atom Finance – Investment Research Platform
- Available: Sign up here
- Price: Free 7-day trial, then $6.99/mo
Atom Finance acts as a modern investment research platform that levels the playing field between retail and institutional investors. It does so by providing access to institutional-quality stock research tools and resources.
The company allows you to do the following with its investment research platform:
- Find investment ideas by screening the stock market for new opportunities based on criteria you select or load into the screener interface
- Link all of your investment accounts across multiple brokerages; allows you to create a comprehensive view of your investment portfolio as well as drill down into your true performance
- Customize alerts and notifications, allowing you to receive the latest news, events, price change movements and information for your portfolio and watchlists
- Run instant keyword searches in exclusive investor documents, SEC filings, transcripts, and news analysis
- Access a complete history of Wall Street analyst actions, price targets and company financials
Conlusion
Many people trade for a living because they’ve discovered the satisfaction and freedom of being their own boss. It isn’t the easiest job to start with, but nearly anyone can do it if they have the drive and commitment to succeed. You don’t need much in order to start exploring trading — just a computer and an internet connection.