Seeking Alpha Review

Last Updated: Jul 17, 2023

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Seeking Alpha has been around since 2004 and started as a smaller blog. Media outlets like Financial Times, Reuters and Barrons quickly noticed the immense value provided by Seeking Alpha authors, and the site has improved year over year ever since.

I also started using Seeking Alpha many years ago and mainly used their free stock research features. I still consider them one of the best stock research websites. The free Seeking Alpha features are well-known by most investors, but only the premium functionalities really unfold the full power of Seeking Alpha.

This Seeking Alpha review aims to provide the best possible insights into the Seeking Alpha Premium subscriptions. Let me guide you through all features and benefits from a user’s perspective. Is Seeking Alpha Premium worth it? Once you have read this review, you know precisely if it is a good choice.

Table of Contents

Features

The following section of the review explains all Premium features in detail:

Stock Research

The stock research feature is one of the Seeking Alpha core elements. There is much more behind this inconspicuous option than you might think.

You can also discover many alternative investment resources like currencies and exchange traded funds. The best way to get started with the stock research feature is to enter a stock symbol at the top. Let’s say you select Apple with the stock symbol AAPL.

In the upper part of the stock research results page, you see the tabs

Summary
Ratings
Financials
Earnings
Dividends
Valuation
Growth
Profitability
Momentum
Peers
Options
Charting

And in the row below, you see a sub-navigation with:

All
Analysis
Comments
News
Transcripts
SEC Fillings
Press Releases
Related Analysis

I recommend you browse through all of those tabs once you log in to your dashboard to explore them in detail.

Let me provide you with more insights into the stock research capabilities.

Ratings Summary

The rating summary provides a quick glance at the opinion of SA authors, Wall Street analysts and the Quant Algo about the selected company, where the Factor Grades provide an instant characterization of each selected stock based on the relevant metrics in the sector. The grades range from A+ (best) to F (worst) and include the current, 3 months ago and 6 months ago grades.

Seeking Alpha Quant Rankings

The Seeking Alpha’s Quant Rankings appear along with insights to their quant rank in the relevant industry, sector and overall.

You can expand the quant ratings by clicking on the highlighted links in blue to see the top lists for the relevant ranking. For example, a click on “Quant ratings beat the market” directs to further insights into the Seeking Alpha quant performance.

Next, there is the People Also Follow section on the right. Here you see stocks that other Seeking Alpha users follow. You can click on the compare button to see how all those companies compare to your chosen one.

I will stop at this point because I think it gets too much in detail about the stock research capabilities. Nevertheless, active investors and retail traders will find this section highly valuable for fundamental stock analysis and research.

The section contains many more graphs, comparisons, ownership insights, capital structure analysis, and so much more. It is entirely impossible to cover all of those features in Seeking Alpha Premium review without letting the review become a book.

Click Here: Seeking Alpha Premium 14 day free trial

Seeking Alpha Ratings

The Seeking Alpha rating tab begins with the sub category Quant Rating, followed by SA Authors’ Rating and Wall Street Analysts Rating.

It is a convenient way to visualize the rating history of a company by all supported grades, graphs, tables and comparisons. A cool feature is the quant rating history, where you can see the grade in the relevant period and the performance during the grading period.

Peers Comparisons

Now, I think this Seeking Alpha content feature is huge. Comparison first sounds simple, and most similar stock research platforms simply compare key stats like market cap, industry category and performance. But Seeking Alpha goes the extra mile for the comparisons.

As a Seeking Alpha subscriber, enter a stock symbol or company name to begin the research. Then click on Peers. Now you can start key stats comparisons side-by-side. You can either use the companies selected by Seeking Alpha to compare within the industry or edit the symbol list for the stocks to compare under “Edit Symbols.”

You can then use easy drill downs to compare factors like value, growth rates, and Quant sector rankings. All results are displayed in easy to read tables and graphs. Finally, you can export all results to Excel as PDF, send it via email, create a reference link or print it.

Stock Ratings Screener

The stock rating screener allows you to quickly filter the full stock universe based on proprietary Quant Ratings, SA Authors Rating, the Wall Street analyst ratings and over 80 fundamental figures like EPS, market cap and more. You can export the results as PDF or Excel files.

Furthermore, you can choose various table layouts like the summary tab, dividends details, earnings, performance and more.

Premium Articles

The premium articles include specific information about the featured stock. There you see the price at the time of publication of the article, the authors rating history and the performance statistics since the stock was mentioned in the article.

That’s a handy feature to discover your favorite authors to follow since you can see how stock typically acts after the author says something positive, neutral or negative on it.

Company Financials

Thousands of stocks are listed on financial markets, and company financials help us to compare the business results of various companies. Here you can crunch data of income statements, balance sheets and cash flow based on your requirements. You have the data of the past 10 years available, and you can export it to Excel as PDF or print it.

But that’s not all. The financial statements on Seeking Alpha are just one part of the company financials. You can click on the latest SEC filings, visualize and download the latest daily timeframe quotes, research the entire stock split history and list the call and put option details for relevant stock options.

Company Earnings

We know all about the importance of earnings reports, earnings estimates, and earnings call transcripts. Seeking Alpha does an exciting job visualizing the consensus, estimates and surprises, downloadable presentation slides and provides unlimited access to earnings call transcripts and audio.

Top Authors to Follow

The top authors to follow feature is new and helps you find the best authors for various investment strategies. It includes categories like “Value and Deep Value,” “Technology, Software and Internet,” “Economy, Macro and Forex,” “Dividend, Income Investing and REITs,” “Growth and GARP,” “Gold, Precious Metals and Minders” and more.

The search result page displays the Seeking Alpha start contributors in the selected category. This feature ensures that you start following the best authors and experts in the chosen field. Seeking Alpha lives from its strong community and the authors. They provide investing ideas and investment strategy insights, and you can follow them.

Dividend Grades

Dividend payments are often used to define a portfolio investment strategy. Some investors only invest in stocks when the company pays high dividends and are convinced when dividends have a longer-term history with sustainability. The dividend grades feature helps you find the best dividend stocks and makes stock market research as easy as 123.

The dividend grades consist of four different grades

Dividend safety (measureas based on 13 underlying financial metrics like earnings and future cash flow, how safe the dividend of a stock is and evaluates how likely it is that dividends will be paid in the future)
Dividend growth (estimates the potential of growing future dividends based on the dividend history, but also future revenue growth, free cash flow and profits)
Dividend yield (compares the dividend attractiveness compared to other companies in the sector)
Dividend consistency (measures how consistently the past dividend payments have been.)

Broker Linking

The portfolio linking feature lets you connect your brokerage account with your Seeking Alpha account. The Plaid platform technology is used for those connections, and connecting accounts from any US bank is possible. This connection is encrypted and private since your credentials will never be visible to Seeking Alpha.

Premium Portfolio

As a Premium subscriber, you can create multiple portfolios and watchlists to practice and test trading strategies or mirror your existing portfolios without using the broker-linking feature. If you want to visualize your whole investing activities in one place, this is a great place to start.

Premium Authors

The premium authors’ feature allows you to analyze an author profile based on key statistics like the number of articles, comments, likes, and followers. You can also evaluate their stock pick accuracy by looking at the chart where you can see their estimates market up on the historical stock chart.

You can also subscribe to the author’s news feed, follow, send a message or mute it to stop receiving articles from a specific author.

Costs

There are three different Seeking Alpha plans available.

The Seeking Alpha Basic Plan (register here) is for free and provides limited access and unlocks features like company news updates, investing newsletters, stock analysis email alerts, stock charts, Wall Street analyst ratings, and in-depth analysis tools.
The Seeking Alpha Premium Plan costs $239 annually (14-day free Premium trial) and is the most popular one. It unlocks access to features like the Seeking Alpha author ratings and performance, stock quant ratings, dividend grades and more.
The Seeking Alpha Pro Plan costs $2,400 annually (14-day free PRO trial) and provides access to all Premium features plus Top Investing Ideas, the PRO content and newsletters, the Short Ideas portal, the Weekly Digest Idea screener, and the VIP service.

Seeking Alpha Discount

An exclusive Seeking Alpha discount with 58% Off is available from time to time to daytradingz.com readers. Seeking Alpha Premium members gain access to expert market analysis, proprietary quant ratings, the stock screener and many other features.

The discount reduces the average monthly cost to $8.25 per month for a total of $99 in the first year. Credit Cards and PayPal can be used to make the purchase.

During times where the discount is not available, it is possible to subscribe to the extended 14 day trial with access to all Premium features.

Click here for the discount or extended free trial.

Seeking Alpha Review Summary

Seeking Alpha is the leading platform for investment research. The main benefits for investors are the extensive amount of stock analysis data, the Quant Rankings and the affordable price for the Premium subscription (14-day free trial included).

Pros

All in one solution for stock research
Fair pricing structure
Regular improvements and new features added

Cons

Limited charting capabilities

FAQs

Who is Seeking Alpha Premium Best for?

Seeking Alpha Premium is best for investors and swing traders who care about company financials, extensive ratings, SEC Fillings, peers comparisons, valuations and the proprietary Seeking Alpha Quant Ranking algorithm and access to the premium articles.

Features like the premium portfolio and brokerage account linking make it easy to simulate investment strategies and manage a portfolio from a centralized platform from research to portfolio tracking. The main stock screener benefit is the option to define filters for the Seeking Alpha Quant Rating, SA Authors Rating and Wall Street Analysts Rating besides the country and industry.

The Seeking Alpha Premium 14-day free trial is the best way to get started.

Is Seeking Alpha Worth It?

Yes. I have intensively tested the service to evaluate if Seeking Alpha Premium is worth it, and it is worth it for various reasons, which I explain in detail along with all features, benefits, and use cases in this review.

Overall Rating