Benzinga Pro is a trading platform that combines multiple key features like stock screeners, real-time market news feeds, charts, stock and options alerts and a trader chat room in one tool. But is Benzinga Pro worth it and the best stock news app? I have tested all platform features intensively and discovered more power behind this platform than expected.
My Benzinga Pro Review reflects my experiences, outlines all benefits and features and reveals some platform hacks. Consider signing up for the 14-day free trial to practice the tips and tricks I have prepared in the tutorial part of the review.
Platform Features
Benzinga Pro is a feature-rich platform with powerful tools for traders and investors. Let’s get into the details of the review of Benzinga Pro by going step by step through the stock analysis platform.
Day Trading & Investing Real Time News
For day trading, you need to know why a specific stock moves. If it gaps up in the morning, the reason for the price gap is crucial to determine if the momentum keeps going after pre-market trading or if a reverse is to be expected. Benzinga can help discover the catalysts for intraday stock price movements. The news feed provides real time updates, analyst ratings, SEC filings, and more.
In addition, the streaming news platform is helpful for investors who want to do research for their portfolio positions or to track the latest FED decisions etc.
Advanced Filters
For day trading purposes, you might want to use additional filters like minimum trading volume, minimum gap, relative volume etc. And as investor, you might want to use filters based on financial metrics like price, volume and market cap, etc. With Benzinga Pro, you can do this.
Company Details & Stock Research
The Details workspace has a lot of potential for detailed analysis of fundamental data. There are three main sections in the detail view. Above the chart, you have the following navigation items:
- Overview: Basic chart with most popular time frames
- News: All news related to the stock
- Calendar: Earnings with dates, estimates, surprise numbers
- Chart: Detailed chart with indicators, drawing tools, time frames
- Financials: Company financials like balance sheets, income statements, cash flow analysis
- Peers: a group of stocks similar to the chosen one
- Insiders: Insider trades by company executives
- Goverment Trades: Trades by Senate members with names, trade amount, transaction type
- Key Data: Fundamental data like float, dividend, PE-ratio
- Short Interest: Short interest updates with float insights
In the lower part of the details feature, you have various news sources arranged in tabs and the most important company financials on the right.
Earnings, Dividends & Guidance Calendar
The calendar feature helps you to analyze news related to a specific date or date range. For example, you select a specif date like June 15, 2023, or a date range like “this month” or “last seven days.” Now you chose a news source type (dividends, earnings, ratings, stock splits, unusual options activity, etc.)
The number of use cases for such an awesome calendar is incredibly high. For example, you can go back in time to search for specific news events and analyze their impact on the price. You can look at previous unusual options activity. You can look at the earnings calendar for the next day or analyze the most recent earnings results per stock symbol.
Watchlist
The Benzinga watchlist is what the name suggests. You can add new securities to your virtual portfolio and define your preferred columns like price, change, daily high, daily low, trading volume, market cap and more.
Market Movers
The Movers feature allows you to visualize results for gainers and losers based on various criteria. You set the filters by using the mouse on a pre-defined dashboard.
- Define if you want to show gainers, losers, or both
- Chose the trading session, this can be pre-market, regular trading hours, after hours
- Select the period from 5, 15 or 30 minutes to 1 hour, session, weekly, monthly, annual, YTD, or custom
- Chose the sectors
- Define the market cap
- Select a price range
- Decide to either auto-refresh results every minute or freeze the result.
I prepared an example to show you how to use Benzinga Pro’s Movers feature.
PreMarket Trading and Benzinga After Hours
Let’s say you’re looking for the biggest gainers in the pre-market hours. But only stocks with a market cap between $300M and $2B are what you are looking for. Also, you like to filter down the results to stocks with a price range from $5-$10.
The Movers list auto-refreshes the result every minute. You can also freeze the result by clicking on Freeze. You can also apply various additional filters and add or remove columns.
You’ll see real-time alerts when you look at the price action, and slightly delayed data for fundamental data like market cap.
Signals
I mentioned the scanner and screener earlier in this Benzinga Pro review. But let me explain Benzinga Pro’s Signals feature first. To open the signal-based screen, chose “SIGNALS” in the left navigation. Now you see the main Signal categories:
- Price spike: stocks with significant price changes
- Option Activity: option sweeps and unusual volume
- Block Trade: for identifying block trades
- Halt/Resume: circuit breaker halts and resumes
- Opening Gap: Leading gappers
- Highs: New daily or 52-week highs
- Lows: New daily or 52-week lows
The results of each signal are shown with the signal type, timestamp, stock symbol and come with a description.
One thing that I like to point out is that you can export the data as CSV-File. Simply click on the little icon on the top right and click “Export Table to CSV.”
Stock Screener
I like to continue with the Benzinga Pro review by talking about the stock scanner.
Refresh intervals:
- Real time
- 10 Seconds
- 30 Seconds
- 1 Minute
- Never
Active traders use the real-time refresh option.
The scanner works for U.S.-listed stocks and allows you to filter and sort stocks based on your requirements. The most important part of the scanner is the Filter feature. Within the filter, you define things like sectors, stock exchange, price range, market cap range, price change within the last minute and more.
You can define your favorite scan from scratch or choose one of the preconfigured scanners by clicking on Presets. Here are 5 examples:
- Overall Gainers
- 5 Minute Movers
- Mid-Cap Movers From Open
- Real-Time After Hours Gainers
- Large-Cap Gainers
One column I like a lot is the number of traded shares within the last minute. This detail gives a good indicator for a day trader if he can day trade the stock with big size. Of course, like with any Benzinga Pro results, you can always click on a stock symbol, and a chart with news will open for further analysis.
You can do everything with this screener similar to what you can do with Finviz and much more by using 30+ fundamental data and 20+ technical data screener filters.
There are 5 pre-configured templates:
- Overview
- Valuation
- Financial
- Trend Following
- Last Candle
The templates vary regarding the columns. In a second step, you can then use the filters to reduce the number of results shown and define if the screen should be related to the daily, weekly, or monthly time frame. For intraday time frames, you use the stock scanner and not the stock screener.
You can export the data with one click at the download symbol at the top right.
Charts
Benzinga Pro comes with integrated charting. The technology is based on TradingView’s platform and supports minute, hourly, daily, weekly and monthly time frames.
The supported chart types include bar charts, candlestick charts, hollow candles, Area charts, HLC charts, Heikin Ashi charts, and more.
Over 100 trading indicators are integrated and include popular ones like VWAP, EMAs, Trading Volume, Stochastic RSI, True Strength Index and many more.
In addition, various annotation types and drawing tools are included, and the chart layouts can be saved.
Squawk Box
You can be alerted by desktop notifications, sound, and synthesized voice. But, the Benzinga Radio Squawk audio feed takes it even a step further. Day traders are always busy, and using eyes only can be a disadvantage trading based on major news. That’s why the Benzinga Radio Squawk Box is a great addition for day traders.
So, if you have only one monitor, then this feature is what you need never to miss any major news again. Use your PC audio and listen to the hottest breaking news and news alerts that drive the market. Audio news are helpful for day trading if you trade based on real-time news.
Benzinga Trading Room
The Benzinga trading room is the go-to place for traders and investors. 9 different chat channels are available:
- Trades by Anne-Marie Baiynd
- Benzinga Options Inner Circle
- Exclusive for Pro Subscribers
- All Benzinga Shows
- Benzinga Crypto
- Day trading idea generation
- Benzinga Options
- Low float trade ideas
- Off topic discussion
The day trading room and the Benzinga Pro lounge are the most active trading rooms. The Inner Circle trading room is only available to Benzinga Options Mentorship subscribers.
Trade Ideas and Analysis
Benzinga Pro has trade ideas and analysis tools to help you find opportunities. Our expert analysts provide trade ideas and in depth research on individual stocks, sectors and market trends. Benzinga Pro’s signals tool scans SEC filings, earnings and press releases to give you tradable insights. With Benzinga Pro you’ll have all the information you need to make informed trading decisions so you never miss a market moving event.
Benzinga Pro Integrations and Mobile App
Benzinga Pro connects to many major brokerages and trading platforms so you can stream news, quotes, charts and analyst ratings directly into your trading platform. This integration allows you to trade quickly and easily without having to re-enter information. Benzinga Pro also has a mobile app for iOS and Android so you can access the platform on the go. Whether you’re at your desk or on the move Benzinga Pro keeps you connected to the market.
Customer Support and Resources
Benzinga Pro has customer support and resources to help you get the most out of the platform. The support team is available to answer questions and help via phone, email or live chat. Benzinga Pro also has educational resources like webinars, videos and how-to guides to help you improve your trading skills and knowledge. With Benzinga Pro you have all the support and information you need to supercharge your trading.
Costs
There are three subscription plans as paid services for Benzinga Pro available: Basic, Essential and the Options Mentorship.
The Basic package is the lowest membership plan and unlocks delayed quotes, watchlist alerts, the Movers feature, newsfeed access (without advanced filtering) and Benzinga Premium articles. The price for the Basic package is $27 per month.
The Essential package is the most popular plan and comes with every Basic feature plus real-time quotes, real-time-scanner access with advancd filtering, audio squawk, trader chat access, sentiment indicators, the Calendar and the Signals feature. The regular price for the Essential package is $197 per month, but after the free trial, you’ll receive a great discount offer from Benzinga that you can use to get in for a more reasonable rate.
The Benzinga Options Mentorship plan is the highest tier and includes everything from the Essential package plus all mentorship, education and options pick features. Yet, the Options Mentorship pkackage is the most expensive one and costs $457 per month. Still, there are discounts available, that reduce that price significantly (either by first using the free trial, or by using one of the discount codes linked after the comparison table below).
Comparison
| Features | Basic Plan | Essential Plan |
|---|---|---|
| Dashboard | ✅ | ✅ |
| Symbol Details | ✅ | ✅ |
| Chat | ✅ | ✅ |
| Watchlists | ✅ | ✅ |
| Movers | ✅ | ✅ |
| NASDAQ Basic Delayed Quotes | ✅ | ✅ |
| NASDAQ Basic Realtime Quotes | ❌ | ✅ |
| Calendar | ❌ | ✅ |
| Newsfeed With Advanced Filtering | ❌ | ✅ |
| Stock Screener | ❌ | ✅ |
| Desk Chat | ❌ | ✅ |
| Squawk | ❌ | ✅ |
The expensive mentorship plan has additional benefits such as mentorship, education, the inner circle trading room, 6 options picks per month, webinars, market insights and strategies.
Discount Code
I’m glad to provide you various Benzinga Pro coupon codes, which reduce the subscription costs by 30%. Still, the best way to get started is the free trial. After the 14-day free trial (no credit card needed), you’ll also get a great discount offer directly from Benzinga.
Benzinga Pro vs. Other Data Providers
Benzinga Pro is different from other data providers because of its full coverage of market-moving events, real-time news and alerts and expert analysis. Others may have similar features but Benzinga Pro’s interface and customization options make it a must have for active traders. With Benzinga Pro you get all the tools and insights to be ahead of the stock market.
Bottom Line
Benzinga Pro is a great investing tool for active traders and investors. It combines market news (via text and audio squawk), stock screeners, chart analysis features, trade alerts, and a trading room. This makes it an excellent choice for all traders and investors with any experience level and trading style.
FAQ
Who Is Benzinga Pro Best For?
Benzinga Pro is best for traders looking for a news streaming platform with real-time market data and extensive stock screening and charting capabilities.
How Much Is Benzinga Pro?
Benzinga Pro offers three subscription packages. The Basic package starts at $27 per month, the Essential subscription costs $197 per month, and Benzinga Options costs $457 per month. The mentioned coupon code reduce the price by 30% Off.
How Long Is the Benzinga Pro Free Trial?
The Benzinga Pro free trial provides full access to all features for 14 days. The 14-day trial allows you to test all functionalities in real-time to make a well-informed decision once the free trial is over.
What Is Benzinga Pro?
Benzinga Pro is a financial news and research platform for active traders. Real time market updates, trading ideas and stock research to help you make informed decisions. User friendly interface and customizable workspaces. Whether you’re following news, charting stocks or looking for analyst ratings Benzinga Pro has you covered. Whether you’re following news, charting stocks or looking for analyst ratings Benzinga Pro has you covered.
Can I Trade With Benzinga Pro?
No, you can’t trade with Benzinga Pro. Instead you need a seperate brokerage account to execute your trades.
Alexander Voigt • Senior Editor & Founder of DAYTRADINGz
Alexander is a day trader and investor with over 20 years of experience analyzing and trading the financial markets. He wrote for Benzinga and Equities.com and has been quoted on leading financial websites such as Business Insider, Investors.com and Forbes.