13 Best Stock Research & Analysis Tools for 2024

One of the most challenging parts of investing in stocks is figuring out which stocks to buy and when to time the markets. Investors who choose the right stocks at the right moment can beat the market, but investors who choose poorly can lose money. Savvy traders need the best stock research tools to help them find winning stocks every time.

Stock research tools can help investors consistently analyze stocks and find outperformers before they take off. In this guide, we’ll review the 13 best stock analysis tools to use in 2024.

Best Stock Research Tools Reviewed

Let’s take a closer look at each of the 11 best tools for stock analysis to help investors decide which is right for them.

1. eToro – Globally Popular Broker with Social Trading Features and Technical Analysis Tools

The eToro platform is a user-friendly platform for trading stocks, ETFs, forex pairs, indices, commodities, and cryptocurrencies—featuring over 5,000 assets. Please note that US customers on eToro can now only trade Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash.

Founded in 2007 and regulated by bodies in the US and UK, Europe and serving over 30 million users worldwide, the eToro platform is best known for its social trading features that allow users to share and browse sentiments of other trades on the platform.

These sentiments are aggregated with data from the TipRanks financial analyst company, and data from experts at some of the world’s leading financial institutions to provide professional sentiments and insights for users.

Users of eToro can enjoy commission free trading and can get started with deposits as small as $100 (depending on country). These users have access to a wide variety of charts and tools for every asset on the platform, allowing them to perform their own technical analysis to better inform their trading decisions.

The eToro platform is competitive and known for being extremely user-friendly, offering a rich Academy of trading and asset knowledge along with investment tooling like CopyTrading, and Smart Portfolios ($500 minimum investment), with a wide range of approaches to investing. 

These tools allow new, and even experienced investors to have performing traders and portfolio managers manage their assets for them.

2. Seeking Alpha – Capable Stock Research Platform with Op-ed Articles from Analysts

Seeking Alpha is one of the best stock analysis tools for investors who like to look at a company from every angle before making an investment decision.

This service gathers blog-style op-ed articles from financial bloggers, industry insiders, and Wall Street analysts. There are typically multiple competing op-eds for any given company—some will argue the bull case for the stock, and some will argue the bear case.

Each article takes a different analysis approach, so investors get to read a lot of different perspectives. There are new articles for each stock almost weekly, so investors can get hot takes on earnings, insider activity, and more.

This can be incredibly useful, especially for investors who can combine all this information with their own analysis. Seeking Alpha offers detailed financial data for every stock, plus market news and peer research.

Seeking Alpha also gives investors a powerful fundamentals-based stock screener with dozens of parameters. The service scores stocks based on categories like value and growth, plus uses an AI model to pick out stocks that will outperform. These scores and picks can be incorporated into screens to quickly find top stocks.

5. Stock Rover – Fundamental Analysis Software with Research Reports and Financial Models

Stock Rover is a comprehensive fundamental analysis platform built for self-directed investors. It offers a wide range of tools for detailed financial analysis, comparing stocks within an industry, and screening to find winning stocks.

One of the key features Stock Rover offers is the ability to chart stock fundamentals. Investors can look at a company’s price-to-earnings ratio over time, for example, or its debt or net income.

As a stock comparison tool, it’s hard to beat Stock Rover. Investors can plot P/E over time for multiple peer companies. The software offers more than 100 financial metrics for comparison and analysis.

Stock Rover also gives investors access to in-depth research reports. These are written by in-house analysts and include an assessment of a company’s fair value. Investors can use this data to quickly spot stocks with the most upside potential.

Stock Rover has one of the most comprehensive stock screen tools we’ve seen. Investors can filter stocks based on hundreds of financial, valuation, and performance metrics. There are pre-built screens for investors who want to find profitable stocks right away and the platform also supports custom formulas.

This software even helps investors manage their portfolios. Investors can run a correlation analysis to see which of their holdings move in the same direction and add more diversification. They can also simulate trades and get automated suggestions for rebalancing holdings over time.

Stock Rover starts at $79.99 per year. A free plan offers limited access to the platform’s financial metrics and research tools.

6. TradingView – Highly Customizable and Social Stock Charting Platform

TradingView is one of the most popular stock charting tools in the world. It boasts more than 50 million monthly users, which just goes to show how great this platform is.

TradingView is all about technical analysis and is one of the best day trading platforms . The platform’s main selling point is its charting software, which is virtually unrivaled in ease of use and customizability. Investors can quickly pull up charts for stocks, cryptocurrencies, forex, commodities, and more, all with real-time data.

TradingView comes with hundreds of ready-to-add indicators. Investors who want to customize their analysis can use the platform’s Pine script editor to create their own indicators.

On top of that, TradingView allows users to post their custom indicators to a social feed. It’s easy to find community-contributed indicators for just about any type of analysis. There’s no extra cost to using these community indicators.

TradingView also offers highly customizable alerts. Traders can set not only price alerts, but also alerts based on technical indicators, price movements, chart patterns, and more.

Unfortunately, TradingView doesn’t support automated trading via a user’s brokerage, but there are third-party apps that enable this. Traders can integrate a brokerage account to place trades manually straight from TradingView’s charts.

Other handy tools in TradingView include a strategy backtester, a technicals-based stock screener, and a replay feature that lets traders see how price changes unfold.

Traders can access TradingView charts for free, but the number of indicators and alerts is significantly limited. Paid plans start at $12.95 per month.

8. FinViz – Free Stock Screener for Fundamental and Technical Investors

FinViz is one of the best free stock analysis tools for 2024. It offers a powerful stock screener and unique visualizations that make it easier for investors to find new ideas quickly.

The stock screener is the main attraction at FinViz. It covers dozens of fundamental and technical parameters, enabling investors to find stocks that are both good investments and setting up for a bull run. It’s versatile enough to be used by swing traders as well as investors.

Another great thing about the screener is that traders and investors can visualize the results in different ways. There’s a list of symbols to scroll through, of course, but the screener results can also be shown as technical charts or in heatmaps. We really like the chart visualizations because they make it easy to spot setups for further research.

Heatmaps and bubble plots are a big part of FinViz. Investors can sort and visualize stocks using either of these plots. The bubble plots make a great stock comparison tool, since investors can see how peer companies spread out on the plot based on a wide range of fundamental and performance parameters.

All of these tools are completely free to use. FinViz also has a premium service called FinViz Elite, which adds a backtesting tool, correlation analysis, and alerts. It’s a high-quality service, but we think most investors will get all the stock tools they need from this platform with the free plan.

9. TrendSpider – Stock Charting Software Offering Automated Technical Analysis

TrendSpider is a unique stock analysis tool focused on automated technical analysis. Its charts are among the best in the industry and rival those of TradingView.

What makes TrendSpider different is that it uses AI to automatically draw trendlines and highlight common candlestick patterns.

This automated analysis can be incredibly powerful. In testing, we’ve found that the software picks up both obvious trendlines and trendlines that we missed during manual analysis. Traders can set the platform’s sensitivity, offering a fair amount of control over the quality of the stock trading signals .

In addition to trendlines and candlestick patterns, TrendSpider can conduct Fibonacci retracement analysis automatically. That’s a major plus since many traders have a hard time figuring out where to start retracement analysis.

TrendSpider also includes a powerful backtesting tool that traders can use to build and test new strategies. Strategies can incorporate the automated analysis features, which create some truly unique opportunities to approach trades. TrendSpider also offers alerts and bots, enabling traders to put their winning strategies on autopilot.

TrendSpider is loaded with other useful features. For example, a built-in strategy scanner surfaces stocks that fits a trader’s technical strategy.

TrendSpider starts at $32 per month and includes data for stocks, futures, forex, cryptocurrencies, and more.

10. Morningstar – Stock Research Firm Specializing in Mutual Funds and ETFs

Morningstar is a widely respected market research firm that’s best known for its mutual fund and ETF analysis.

Fund investors will find an unparalleled amount of research at Morningstar. Most funds come with a detailed research report, similar to those that are usually reserved for individual companies. Morningstar also rates each fund on a 1-5 star scale, making it easy to find the most-recommended funds.

For mutual funds, Morningstar offers great visualizations to break down a fund’s investment style, holdings, and comparisons to competing funds. The platform also conducts detailed risk analysis, which is something that isn’t normally available for ETFs.

Another great feature within Morningstar is its Portfolio X-Ray tool. Investors who own multiple funds often have overlapping holdings without realizing it, which can affect how diversified they are. Morningstar looks at the holdings inside the funds an investor’s own to show them how diversified they are across market cap, geography, industries, and more.

Of course, Morningstar also has screeners for ETFs and mutual funds. These offer a wide range of parameters to help investors find top-rated funds that suit their investing goals.

Morningstar offers a surprising amount of research for free, but investors will need to upgrade to a Premium subscription for $249 per year to get access to many of the platform’s best research tools.

11. Zacks Investment Research – Stock Recommendation Service with In-depth Research Tools

Zacks is an investment research firm that provides actionable stock recommendations for investors.

The heart of this service is the #1 Rank List. This is a list of around 100 bullish stocks chosen by Zacks analysts as worth buying right now. The list turns over every few weeks, so there are always new stock ideas for investors to explore.

Zacks picks focus on stocks that blend value, growth, and momentum. In fact, the service grades every stock on these 3 categories on a scale from AF. Stocks in the #1 Rank List usually have an investment horizon of 12 months, making this stock finder tool more friendly to short-term investors than a service like Motley Fool Stock Advisor.

Another thing that’s interesting about Zacks is that it offers short-side picks. The #5 Rank List includes stocks that Zacks analysts recommend as strong sells. This list doesn’t have as strong a performance record as the #1 Rank List, so investors should use it cautiously.

Zacks’ approach requires investors to follow up on picks with their own research, and it gives them plenty of data and tools to do that. The service also has a stock screener with dozens of fundamental metrics.

Zacks costs $249 per year and offers a 30-day free trial.

12. Benzinga Pro – Real-time Financial News Service with Audio Squawk

Benzinga Pro is a real-time stock news platform that gives day traders an edge in the market by delivering headlines before they break anywhere else. Everything about this platform is optimized for speed.

News is delivered in a stream with headlines that summarize the key points of breaking news. Every headline is written by in-house news analysts, not copied from another financial newswire service. Investors can see at a glance what the story is and whether Benzinga analysts think it will be a bullish or bearish catalyst for the stock.

Traders can filter the news feed by ticker symbol, industry, or keyword, ensuring they only see headlines that are relevant to their trading. The feed can also be filtered by price movements, volume, and related factors that indicate a stock is trading more than usual.

Traders can activate an audio squawk function, which reads headlines aloud. This is a huge advantage for fast-paced trading, when traders need to focus their eyes on stock charts instead of the news feed.

Benzinga Pro is pricey, with plans starting at $27 per month. However, it’s one of the best tools for stock analysis for day traders who need to know about news the second it breaks.

13. Motley Fool Stock Advisor – Stock Picking Service Offering Two Monthly Recommendations

Motley Fool is a popular stock analysis platform with multiple stock picking services to cater to different types of investors. Stock Advisor is the company’s flagship service, offering 2 growth stock picks per month.

The appeal of Stock Advisor is that it’s incredibly simple. The service recommends 2 stocks and investors can buy them whenever they get a chance. There are research reports for investors who want to know more about what they’re investing in, but these aren’t mandatory reading.

Stock Advisor primarily investors in long-term, explosive growth stocks. Some of the service’s past picks include Amazon and Netflix in the early 2000s. In general, investors should plan to hold onto Stock Advisor picks for at least 5 years, and potentially 10 years or longer.

Between the newsletter’s launch in 2002 and August 2023, its picks have returned 501%—compared to 131% for the S&P 500 as a whole. That’s an absolutely stunning track record that many hedge funds can’t match .

In addition to the 2 monthly picks, investors get access to 2 lists of stocks. One, the Foundational Stocks list, covers 10 stocks that every growth investor should own in their portfolio. The other, the Top 10 Ranking list, highlights 10 stocks already in the Stock Advisor portfolio that investors should consider doubling down on.

These lists ensure that investors have investment opportunities among new picks.

Stock Advisor costs $199 per year. There’s no free trial, but the service does come with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Types of Stock Trading Tools

It should be clear after reading the reviews above that there are many different types of tools for stock market analysis.

We’ll cover some of the main types and explain what they’re best for.

Fundamental Research Tools

Fundamental stock research tools are primarily designed for short and long-term investors. These tools give investors a detailed look at a company’s financial health, valuation metrics, and fundamental performance.

Investors can use fundamental research tools to understand where a company is at now and where it could be in the future. The focus is on the business itself, with fluctuations in the stock price mattering mainly to determine whether a stock is undervalued or overvalued.

Many fundamental research platforms are also stock comparison tools. They enable investors to directly compare financial or valuation metrics across multiple companies in the same sector. That enables investors to choose the best stock for them in any industry.

The fundamental research tools we covered above include Stock Rover, Morningstar, Seeking Alpha, and Zacks.

Technical Analysis Tools

Technical analysis tools focus on stock price fluctuations to help traders and short-term investors determine where the price could go next. These platforms are often stock charting tools, or at least rely heavily on charts to supplement their analysis.

Technical analysis tools can take different approaches. Some, like TradingView, make it easy for traders to invent their own technical indicators or borrow indicators from others. Others, like TrendSpider, incorporate AI to conduct chart annotation automatically. Most platforms support stock alerts and strategy backtesting to help traders get an edge.

It’s worth noting that many top stock brokers also offer charting software. However, broker-provided charting tools often lack the advanced features that dedicated technical analysis tools provide.

Another thing to keep in mind is that research has shown that individual investors tend to underperform the market when relying on technical analysis alone.

Stock Picking Services

Stock picking services like Motley Fool Stock Advisor and Zacks recommend stocks to buy. Depending on the service, investors may be able to follow the picks blindly or they may need to do a significant amount of follow-up research.

Stock picking services are great for first-time investors because they offer a roadmap for how to invest. However, they can also work well for more experienced investors who want to generate investment ideas.

While the stock picking services we reviewed are mainly focused on fundamental performance, there are services that pick stocks based on technical analysis. These services are geared toward day and swing traders and require much greater attention to the market on a daily basis.

Stock Screener

Many of the services we reviewed include stock screen tools as part of their platforms. Stock screeners are incredibly useful for generating ideas that match a trader’s strategy or an investor’s goals.

For example, say an investor wants to invest in profitable stocks in the healthcare sector that offers a dividend of at least 2%. They can use a stock search tool like FinViz to generate a list of stocks that meet those criteria.

After generating that list, it’s up to the investor to research those stocks further and decide which ones to buy. This is why stock screeners are often paired with other stock research tools.

Stock News Services

Stock news services like Benzinga Pro are ideal for traders who want to trade the news. These platforms deliver breaking headlines as quickly as possible so that traders can act before the rest of the market catches up.

The key to stock news services is speed. The faster a platform is able to report a breaking headline—and put that information in a form traders can act on it—the better traders will be positioned to place a trade before stock prices start moving on them.

Alternative Data Services

Alternative data providers like AltIndex go beyond traditional financial metrics to give investors a different way of evaluating companies. This can be very powerful in today’s market, when there’s so much data out there that most investors aren’t aware of.

In the case of AltIndex, metrics like social media mentions and web traffic serve as proxies for how interested customers are in a company. If social media activity spikes, it could be a sign that the company will perform better than expected. Investors can then buy the stock in anticipation of an earnings beat that will send the share price higher.

Benefits of Stock Analysis Tools

At the end of the day, every trader’s and investor’s goal is to be more profitable. The best stock research tools help traders and investors achieve that goal by surfacing ideas, enabling robust analysis, and saving time.

Find Investment Opportunities

One of the key reasons to use a stock research tool is to find trade and investment opportunities. Investors have a universe of thousands of stocks to choose from, and their challenge is to find the best stocks to buy at any given time.

As we described above, stock research tools take many different approaches to this problem. Some focus on fundamentals, some on technicals, and others on alternative data. But the end goal is always to find opportunities that the market as a whole may have missed.

Pick Industry Winners

Stock comparison tools help investors choose winning companies within an industry. This is important because not all companies within an industry will fare equally well. The tech industry might have been hot overall over the last decade, for example, but there turned out to be a big difference between investing in Amazon and investing in Blackberry.

Comparison tools ensure that investors choose the best option when comparing companies with similar products or services. That might not always be the best-performing company right now, but rather the one that’s set to deliver the biggest gains over the long term.

Speed Up Investing

The process of finding stocks, learning about them, and making an investment decision can be extremely time-consuming. The best stock analysis tools speed up this process with features like screeners, visualizations, and research reports.

Investors can save time on every investment decision. That allows them to enjoy life rather than worry about investing all day—or to move on to finding the next great investment to add to their portfolio.

How to Choose the Stock Analysis Tool for You

Choosing the best stock analysis tool for an investor’s needs comes down to several factors.

Technical vs. Fundamental Analysis

One of the first things investors need to consider when choosing a stock analysis tool is whether they want to focus on technical analysis, fundamental analysis, or a blend of the two .

In general, technical analysis is better suited for traders and short-term investors. Fundamental analysis is better suited for medium and long-term investors.

Investors can use both types of analysis to guide investments. For example, they might look for fundamentally strong stocks and then use technical analysis to find good entry points. However, most investors will benefit from focusing on one type of analysis or the other.

Self-Directed Research vs. Self-Directed Research Recommendations

Some stock research platforms give investors a suite of tools to research stocks, then leave them to find companies that suit their investing style. Others point investors to stock picks or recommendations, but offer fewer tools for research and peer comparison.

Neither approach is necessarily better—it depends on what an investor wants. Some investors love the process of discovering stocks and feel rewarded by doing their own research. Other investors prefer to spend less time investing and just jump straight to top picks.

Investment Style

Different investment services point investors towards different types of stocks. For example, Stock Advisor focuses on growth stocks, while Zacks focuses on stocks that blend value, growth, and momentum.

Investors should think carefully about what types of stocks they want to invest in since the difference between investing in growth and value stocks can be large . It might make sense for some investors to use multiple approaches and platforms to diversify their portfolio across value and growth stocks.

Investment Timeframe

Investment timeframe is closely related to whether a service focuses on technical or fundamental analysis. It also matters for stock recommendation services. Some stock picking tools look for stocks that will mature in 12 months, while others look for stocks that will bear fruit in a decade.

Investors should consider their overall financial situation and goals when choosing an investment timeframe. Investors can also have different portfolios with different time frames.

Are Stock Trading Tools Worth It?

Stock research and analysis tools can make a huge difference for traders and investors. These tools have the potential to make it easier to find opportunities, help investors make informed decisions, and reduce the amount of time they spend investing.

Without top stock trading software , investors are left on their own to navigate the market. While that might work for a few experienced investors, most people will underperform the market and could even lose money if they don’t have software to help give them an edge.

One important thing to consider when choosing the best stock research tools is how much capital an investor has in their portfolio. If an investor has a $50,000 portfolio, it makes sense to spend $500 per year on a research tool to increase their returns by 4%. On the other hand, if an investor has a $5,000 portfolio, spending $500 per year on a tool will eat up a lot of their capital. Another useful tool to consider adding to your arsenal are stock portfolio trackers which allow traders to monitor their portfolios more effectively.

Still, investors can find the best stock trading tools for every budget. Many sophisticated platforms offer free stock research tools for investors who are just starting out.

Conclusion

The best stock research tools help investors find opportunities and maximize their chances of beating the market. One of the best tools to use today is eToro, a multi-faceted trading platform.

References

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/23/how-hedge-funds-use-alternative-data-to-make-investments.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/18/stock-picking-has-a-terrible-track-record-and-its-getting-worse.html

https://www.protradingschool.com/why-does-fibonacci-retracement-work/

https://www.reuters.com/article/investment-technical/peering-at-charts-brings-poor-returns-for-small-investors-study-idINDEEA2O0BK20140325

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/06/growth-stock-vs-value-stock-its-all-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder.html

https://www.amgfunds.com/research-and-insights/investment-essentials/fundamental-vs-technical-

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