Stock market investing is a complex and challenging task. The entire process can seem overwhelming when you look at all the resources and tools available to investors today. It’s easy to get lost in the noise and clutter, and become paralyzed with indecision and inaction. That’s why we decided to take a comprehensive look at the best free stock research tools available in one place. This article looks at ten online resources designed to help you cut through much of the noise when it comes to investing in stocks, equities, options, funds, futures or other such instruments. The Internet is awash with free stock research tools that promise everything from stock market support, investment ideas and forecasts, scripts and indicators, news feeds, forums,
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A vital part of a trader’s success, especially those who trade frequently, is the ability to evaluate the patterns in trading data. Technical analysis techniques can remove emotion from a trading decision. A technical analysis system can generate buy and sell indicators and help locate new trading opportunities. With the improvements in software and the speed of accessing millions of points of data over the past 15 years, technical analysis tools are available to all online traders.
Most of the better sites that offer technical analysis tools also guide new traders towards a fundamental understanding of the core concepts. Some of these resources are free or included in a broker’s platform, but others charge a fee. We’ll take a look at technical analysis tools that are built into brokers’ offerings as well as some standalone resources. These are listed in alphabetical order and are not intended to imply a ranking.
Brokers Offering Technical Analysis Tools
Several of the brokers listed below utilize Recognia, a third-party provider. A Canadian-based company, Recognia by Trading Central provides excellent technical analysis tools that many brokers have integrated into their frequent trader platforms.
Recognia’s tools automatically analyze price action to identify and interpret classic chart patterns and other critical conditions based on accepted practices of technical analysis. These Technical Event notifications give traders insight into the strengths and weaknesses of stocks under consideration.
These tools cannot be accessed by individual investors outside brokerage platforms, but you will find their technology built into quite a few active trader sites.1
Ally Invest
Ally Invest’s brokerage platform includes a stock screener that is powered by Recognia.https://cc157110995733518cae8396351224e5.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
Read Investopedia’s review of Ally Invest.
Charles Schwab
Charles Schwab’s frequent trader platform, StreetSmart Edge, offers Screener Plus, which uses real-time streaming data, allowing clients to filter stocks and ETFs based on a range of fundamental and technical criteria, including technical signals from Recognia. Traders can set the parameters that are most important to them and then integrate Screener Plus results with their pre-defined watch lists. StreetSmart Edge’s customizable charts incorporate Recognia pattern recognition tools.
Charting on mobile devices includes quite a few technical analysis indicators, though there are no drawing tools.
Read Investopedia’s review of Charles Schwab.
E*TRADE
On Power E*TRADE, the firm’s active trader platform, the Live Action scanner has over 100 pre-defined screens that scan the market in real-time on live prices and live analytical metrics based on technical, fundamental, earnings, sentiment and news events.
The Oscillator scans built into Live Action help uncover overbought or oversold stocks and explore additional opportunities for a client’s portfolio. Many of these built-in screens are unique to the Power E*TRADE platform.
The Recognia scanner enables you to scan stocks based on technical events or patterns, and set alerts when new criteria are met. You can use the paper trading capabilities of Power E*TRADE to test out your technical trading system.
Read Investopedia’s review of E*TRADE.
Fidelity Investments
Active Trader Pro is Fidelity’s downloadable trading interface, offering a deeper feature set than is available through the website. Active Trader Pro provides customizable charting functions and trade tools upfront. The software can alert you to technical signals in stocks you are following, and provide alerts on open positions.
Fidelity’s web-based charting has integrated technical patterns and events provided by Recognia. The advanced charting on the web offers the ability to see up to 40 years of historical price data, 30 days of intraday data, extended hours data, and more than 60 fully customizable technical indicators.
The Fidelity Learning Center with content made up of articles, videos, webinars, infographics, and recorded webinars, includes a focus on technical analysis.
Fidelity also offers weekly online coaching sessions, where clients can attend with a small group (eight to 10 attendees) to have in-depth discussions around the topics of options and technical analysis.
Read Investopedia’s review of Fidelity.
Interactive Brokers
Extensively customizable charting is offered on all of Interactive Brokers’ platforms and includes hundreds of indicators and real-time streaming data. Trader Workstation (TWS), IB’s flagship trading platform, contains advanced technical analysis tools with over 120 indicators and more than 30 years of data.
There’s a demo version of TWS available that allows traders to learn how the platform works and to test trading scenarios. In addition, it’s possible to attach a third-party analytics platform to your IBKR account. A full list of vendors can be searched at the Investors Marketplace.
Read Investopedia’s review of Interactive Brokers.
Lightspeed
Intended for very frequent traders, Lightspeed’s flagship platform, a downloadable program called Lightspeed Trader, has a highly customizable live market scanner called LightScan which can help you screen for current trading opportunities.
LightScan searches the entire universe of stocks to display symbols sorted and filtered based on your preferences. There are over 100 possible criteria to search on, which can be combined. The flagship platform has customizable charting with 20 years of historical data available.
There’s a demo version of the platform available for those who want a test drive.
Read Investopedia’s review of Lightspeed.
Thinkorswim (TD Ameritrade)
TD Ameritrade’s advanced options-focused platform, thinkorswim, allows traders to customize the platform with their favorite tools and a trade ticket. Though the platform was initially designed for options trading, there are plenty of analytical tools for equity traders too. You’ll find drawing tools, technical indicators, and data visualization tools.
Thinkorswim allows traders to create their own analysis tools as well as use a built-in programming language called thinkScript. The desktop version of thinkorswim is the most powerful, but you can also use a web version or the mobile app. All include streaming real-time data powering more than 400 technical studies.
Charles Schwab, which is in the process of acquiring TD Ameritrade, has announced that the thinkorswim trading platforms will continue to operate once the two companies merge. The acquisition closed in the fourth quarter of 2020, and the platform integrations were expected to take another 18–36 months.2
Read Investopedia’s review of TD Ameritrade.
TradeStation
Technical analysis and statistical modeling of trading strategies is a key strength of the TradeStation platform. The brokerage grew out of technical analysis software development firm Omega Research, so technical analysis is in its DNA.
The downloadable TradeStation 10 platform offers incredible charting capability based on tick data. Automated technical analysis is built into the charting package, displaying technical patterns on the charts as they form. Web charting capabilities closely match TradeStation 10, including a new toolbar with access to adjust time frames, drawing tools, sessions, and styles.
This is one of the best charting applications available from any broker, and it is especially notable for how well it is integrated with TradeStation’s order management system.
TradeStation users can also create and backtest a trading system based on technical events. TradeStation’s trading simulator has all the tools you’ll find on TradeStation 10 and includes a large historical database for backtesting strategies.
Read Investopedia’s review of TradeStation.
Tradier
Tradier is an interesting beast, offering a brokerage-account management system, a trading engine, and some market data. Account settings and market data are based in the cloud, so customers can log into and trade from any of Tradier’s developer partners.
Using an application programming interface (API), front-end designers can launch their own trading platforms, mobile apps, algorithmic trading systems, or other customized features for their customers. The ability to attach a third-party platform to one’s online brokerage account isn’t new—quite a few of the brokers mentioned above can do it too—but Tradier is the first broker to make it the center of its business model.
We will note in the next section whether a standalone technical analysis site can be bolted onto Tradier’s brokerage management platform, enabling transactions while using analytical tools.
ADDITIONALLY
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As a stock trader, you know that taking time to research stocks and funds you want to trade gives you an advantage, so do you use tools and subscription services that can help you trade more effectively?
We’ve rounded up some of our favorite trading tools that can help you maximize your profits, minimize losses and master the stock market.START TRADINGUpcoming IPOsA new IPO means a new trading opportunity! Stay up-to-date with the most exciting IPOs with Capital.com
Contents
- Best Stock Research Tools
- Main Types of Stock Research Tools
- What to Look for in a Stock Research Tool
- Research Tools to Drive Growth
- Frequently Asked Questions
Best Stock Research Tools
Now that you know what you’re looking for, consider testing out one of these top picks for stock research.
Best For
All Trading LevelsGET STARTED
1. Benzinga Pro
- Who it’s for: All levels
- Price: Starts at $99 per month – Learn More
Benzinga’s own Benzinga Pro is a full suite of easy-to-use, customizable stock research tools.
The core of the platform is the real-time newsfeed, but includes several other tools for stock research. Users can also set up a variety of real-time alerts, including desktop notifications, email, and voice alerts among the tools.
Tools inside Benzinga Pro include:
- Newsfeed
- Screener
- Movers (Find top gainers and losers)
- Audio Squawk
- Stock Details
- Why Is It Moving?
- Calendar Suite
- Watchlists
- Signal Alerts (including opening gaps, block trades and options alerts)
Whether you’re looking for a screener, top movers or want to chat with other traders, Benzinga Pro brings all the essential tools together in a single platform. Each of the tools are customizable so you can fit it to your trading strategy.
Get started for free – Join product demo today!
Best For
Portfolio OptimizationGET STARTED
2. Ziggma
- Who it’s for: All levels
- Price: Free for the basic version, $9.90/month for Ziggma Premium
Beginners and experts alike benefit greatly from Ziggma’s institutional grade quantitative stock research offering. Ziggma’s powerful algorithm scores stocks on a scale of 0-100 within a given industry, thereby helping users identify the best stocks quickly.
The Ziggma Stock Scores are the product of over two years of extensive R&D work by a team of seasoned financial analysts and programmers. The underlying methodology captures 32 key performance indicators (KPIs) across the categories valuation, growth, profitability and financial situation. In addition to a stock’s overall score, Ziggma provides sub-scores for the categories growth, valuation, profitability and financial situation. This provides additional value for growth or value investors, for example.
Ziggma’s methodology is more than validated by excellent backtesting results. An investment portfolio consisting of Ziggma’s top-scoring stocks yields an outperformance of 8% per annum relative to the S&P 500 for the period 2011 – 2020.
Ziggma makes sophisticated stock research, which used to be the exclusive domain of hire-powered hedge funds and asset managers, available to individual investors.
Linking a bank account to check how Ziggma scores your stocks is free of charge.
Best For
ETF TradersGET STARTED
3. Seeking Alpha
- Who’s it for: Investors from beginners to professionals
- Price: Basic, free; Premium, $19.99/month; Pro, $199.99/month
Using Seeking Alpha to research stocks allows you to do several things, including:
- Tracking your portfolio
- Reading news
- Reading articles by expert authors
- Checking stock charts
- Receive stock alerts
- Subscribe to the newsletter
You can also set up stock scanners or review lists built by Seeking Alpha. This platform is rich with data, and you can add indicators to stock charts for every security on the market.
Aside from the obvious advantages of the platform, Seeking Alpha allows you to study strategies that help you succeed on the market. Follow your favorite author. Read their articles, interact as much as you can and track your portfolio so that you can remain as financially healthy as possible.
4. Finviz Stock Screener
- Who it’s for: All levels
- Price: Free for the basic version, $25 a month for Finviz Elite
By far one of the most intuitive and easiest stock screening tools available on the market, Finviz is an asset for both beginning traders and seasoned professionals alike.
The name Finviz comes from a combination of the words financial and visualization, referring to the site’s wide array of candlestick charts and easy-to-comprehend visuals that tell you how the market is doing with a single glance.
Finviz’s stock screener is impressive, sorting and scanning stocks with over 60 technical, descriptive, and fundamental characteristics.
Access to Finviz’s real-time market data comes with its $25 per month Elite version — but for professional traders, this is money well spent for a gold mine of data.
Best For
Active TradersGET STARTED
5. Moomoo
- Who it’s for: Cost-conscious traders
- Price: Free
Moomoo was designed as a platform for smart trading, while investors can also enjoy the benefits of low fees.
This mobile trading platform built their advanced tools well-organized in one app. It’s free and easy to use for both beginners and experienced traders. A host of research tools can help you make smart investment decisions. There’s also a paper trading feature with real-time data if you want to simulate the investment experience before going all in.
Moomoo allows you to invest when it’s convenient for you. You can initiate trades whether to go or at home, with your customized set-ups synced on different devices. Plus, there’s no minimum deposit to open an account.
Best For
Professional InvestorsGET STARTED
6. 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.
conclusion
When it comes to investing, there are literally thousands of free stock research tools you can use. Exactly what are these free stock research tools? They are websites, applications, programs… literally any tool that can help you make more money in the stock market.