If you’re new to the stock market, you may be asking yourself “what are the best free stock research tools?” There are a lot of information – and many best stock research tools to choose from. Well, we’ve done some homework for you and we’ve highlighted some of the best stock research websites and free stock research tools for beginners.
It can be tough to find good stock research tools to help you make the right investment decisions. When I first started trading stocks, like most others, I didn’t really know where to begin. I did a lot of reading and created spreadsheets and databases to store information about companies I was researching. Nowadays there are a ton of great stock research tools for beginners. However, I was surprised by how little useful information is available online if you want to know what are the best free stock research tools. But after some searching, testing, analyzing, and writing up the results…I finally have some answers.
Moomoo
A mobile trading app, Moomoo is an entirely free trading platform. The app features several research tools targeted at both new and experienced traders. Use it across different platforms, and without deposit restrictions, the options are endless.
Designed as a smart platform, Moomoo helps you make profitable trading decisions. You can also simulate a trading experience with their paper trading option before investing actual money.
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.
GuruFocus
GuruFocus is another extensive stock research platform dedicated to value investing. It was founded in 2004 and follows the principles of Warren Buffett. They believe the most effective way to create wealth is by investing for long term and in quality instruments. GuruFocus provides a range of tools to excel at investment. For starters, it tracks 175+ investment gurus – mostly wealth managers and successful individual investors and CEOs and CFOs of various companies — to provide an upper hand on the market and information.
The platform also hosts vital features such as a comprehensive stock screener, discussion forums for investors, financial news, insider trading information and along with a range of financial statements, business and valuation ratios. Plus, GuruFocus sports interactive charts, warning signs and data APIs, to help investors to make a informed investment decisions.
Clients are entitled for the 7-days free trail of GuruFocus Premium and PremiumPlus membership.
For individual investors:
- The price of the Premium membership depends on the geographical market. US market data costs $449/year, while European and Asian market data costs only $399/year.
For professional investors:
- Professional membership cost $2,245/year for US market data and $1,995/year for Asian and European.
Finviz Stock Screener
Finviz Stock Screener uses a combination of information and visuals like candlestick charts to help users compare market performance. The application also features a free basic version for beginners.
Professional traders also use the easy-to-use platform. It features over sixty customization options that organize data as per your needs. Furthermore, you can easily monitor all stock market movements at the same time. As a result, Finviz is currently one of the most user-friendly tools out there.
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.
StockFetcher
StockFetcher is a website and mobile app that offers highly customizable stock screening tools as well as stock charting.
Like FinViz, you can use StockFetcher to build custom filters that let you find companies that meet your precise investing targets. You can filter based on things like market capitalization, stock price, recent price trends, dividend yield, and more.
If you want to dig down into a single company’s shares, you can use StockFetcher’s charts to analyze recent price changes of stocks. You can view charts with timelines as short as intraday or as long as monthly. You can also add your own trendlines and other illustrations to help you perform technical analysis.
StockFetcher’s basic tools are available for free but if you want to unlock the site’s full suite of tools, you have to purchase a subscription. You can subscribe for either $8.95 per month or $24.95 per quarter.
For people who want the top-end StockFetcher experience, you can sign up for a premium subscription, which costs $16.95 per month or $44.95 per quarter. This expands your watch list and saved filter limits and gives you even more advanced stock filters you can use.
Business Quant
That’s us! Business Quant provides provides financial data, segment financials, KPI data and powerful analytical tools to help investors research stocks and understand industry trends. We like to think that Business Quant is one of the best stock research tools when it comes to making informed investment decisions.With Business Quant, you can access powerful features such as:
- Key Performance Indicator Data (eg. AT&T’s subscriber adds, McDonalds’ restaurant openings, Tesla’s vehicle deliveries by model etc.),
- Segment and geographic financials (eg. revenue by segment, revenue by region etc.),
- Industry Data (eg. market share, shipments by vendor etc.),
- Non-GAAP metrics from company presentations and filings,
- Stock Screener,
- Sector financials,
- Stock comparison functionality,
- Stock warnings,
- Stock ratings
- SEC filings
- 200+ financial items and ratios for thousands for US stocks,
- Financial statements dating back 10+ years,
- Charting and visualization tools,
- Download data in CSV and XLSX formats
Our team of analysts goes through company filings, press releases, investor presentations and other company documents, to compile segment financials, non-GAAP metrics and key performance indicators. This way, you never have to dig through boring company documents and maintain a database of your own. Countless hours saved!
The basic plan is free of cost, but provides access to limited data.
The Pro plan is priced at just $19/month, when billed annually.
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.
Ycharts
Ycharts was founded back in 2009 and since then it’s well known for providing an extensive range of data points. They claim to have over 4000 clients who collectively, oversee more than $750 billion in assets.
Ychart provides 7-day free trail for their services,
- Their Standard basic package is priced at $3,600/year and the Professional is priced at $6,000/year
The standard package includes access to the following :
- Fundamental & Technical Charting
- Stock & Fund Screeners
- Live News and Customizable Alerts
- Analyst Estimates & Recommendations
- Dashboard for Monitoring Markets & Securities
Professional and Enterprise packages allow for the user to have access for features such as Charts, Excel Add-In, Integration Support, Model Portfolios, Comp Tables & Timeseries Analysis, Scoring Models, Dedicated Account Manager, Collaboration & Content Sharing Across Users, Tailored Onboarding & Training Program, Firm-wide Excel Model Conversion & Automation, and Consolidated Billing & Account Admin.
Morningstar
Morningstar is an investing news and analysis website that is one of the best-known names in investment research. Morningstar provides analysis and ratings for individual stocks as well as mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), making it useful for investors of all types.
The company is primarily focused on value investors who want to find good deals on strong companies and to hold those shares for the long-term. If you’re a buy and hold investor, Morningstar’s analysis will likely be useful. If you want to try your hand at day trading, the information on Morningstar’s site is likely to be less useful.
The company is also well-known for its industry-leading mutual fund ratings, making it a good resource for investors who like to use mutual funds.
Morningstar offers some of its content, including article archive and basic stock screening capabilities for free. Full access to its content, including analyst reports, investment picks, and its portfolio X-ray tool, requires a premium subscription, which costs $199 per year.
Dough Roller readers can get a discount on Morningstar Premium, saving $30 on a one-year subscription, $70 on a two-year subscription, and $100 on a three-year subscription.
Conclusion:
Many aspiring investors simply don’t know where to look when they’re starting out. The sheer volume of information can be overwhelming. This is true both for free stock research tools and stock research websites. The two can seem interchangeable, but they are actually very different approaches. Stock research tools are sites that help you analyze stocks. Stock research websites are sites that feature financial content or news. As you start out investing, it’s important to have a balanced approach to your analysis. This makes it easier to distinguish between what’s real and what’s just noise.