If you’re someone who is interested in putting money in the stock market without a broker or advisor, you probably have been looking for a stock research platform to help you. Now before going into any specific platform or investing any money you should probably first decide what type of investments you want to make.
Short-term vs Long-term Stock Investments
Now as the name suggests there are two fundamental ways to invest in the stock market. Either you buy stocks to sell them in the short-term (under one year) or you buy them to watch their value grow over time and potentially get a dividend from them.
There is no one set strategy that works best in this regard. The general rule of thumb is that short-term investors, normally called traders, aim to make their money off large price swings on a given stock. Using this approach, you must constantly keep up to date with the market and the stock’s performance within it.
Long-term investors, anyone aiming to invest in a stock and hold on to it for one or more years, approach the market differently. Instead of large price swings, a long-term investor will generally look for stocks that give a solid performance and that have excellent management.
You might be asking yourself can’t I do both types of investing? Well of course you can, in fact most professional traders will build out long-term portfolios with the money they make from short-term investing. However, the differences between resources and approaches to investing are completely different.
What are the Four Best Platforms for Investing and Trading?
The majority of readily available online investment platforms and tools focus on trading. Simply for the fact that people have made a lot of money day trading stocks. They generally range in the difficulty of understanding and cost.
In general, the four highest regarded platforms in the trading and investing space are Seeking Alpha, Bulls on Wall Street, Earn2Trade, and Carnivore Trading. With these four being very popular and several others existing, you may be asking yourself, which one is best?
We’re going to go through each one to help you make that decision.
Bulls on Wall Street
Now, Bulls on Wall Street is one of the most interesting stock market information platforms available simply because its creator is a well-known day trader. As a result, the platform focuses on teaching and mentorship of understanding the financial markets and how to operate in them above all else.
The biggest selling point of Bulls on Wall Street is the depth of knowledge they’re able to provide to traders through their active mentorship programs. Which is something fairly unique in the space, as insights traditionally are algorithmically decided.
Their biggest con is that they don’t offer any free services to try them out and they don’t have anything built to assist in long-term investment decision making. But if you’re just starting out and you know already that you want to be a day trader you might want to read some Bulls on Wall Street reviews to find out all they have to offer.
Carnivore Trading
If Bulls on Wall Street is for the aspiring day trader, Carnivore Trading is for the retail investor looking to diversify into day trading with minimal effort. It’s quite expensive for someone just entering the space, at a $250 per month subscription fee, but what it loses in fees it attempts to make up for in hassle-free results.
Carnivore Trading gives impactful results without being an impact on you, through something similar to a copy feature. You get to see in real-time what some of the best traders are doing around the world. Additionally, they do offer a 14-day free trial so even without integrating you could hypothetically test out the platform for free.
Their biggest drawback comes from a lack of transparency on who are the traders you’re copying and also the fact that they are relative newcomers to the market. However, despite being relative newcomers as far as investment platforms go, they do have an active user base. On top of that, they do offer their services to institutional investors for a much higher fee, however, the company does not disclose how many people are using that service. Just like Bulls on Wall Street, if you’re interested in learning more about them, reading some Carnivore Trading reviews will help you make an informed decision.
Earn2Trade
A popular but stranger of the platforms out there is Earn2Trade. They are a training service that is designed to make you a professional trader. If you complete the course and hit all their requirements they will even fund you to start trading.
There is a lot that goes into the mechanics of Earn2Trade as it’s basically a training program you pay for that results in you having a job at the end of it. For more information, we highly recommend reading some Earn2Trade reviews as it is one of the most unique platforms on the market.
Seeking Alpha
The last and certainly not least on this list is Seeking Alpha. Unlike their competitors, they offer as much information as possible for both short-term and long-term investors. Unlike the majority of others, they offer some free features, but full market reports and individual stock reports are all apart of their premium service.
Their only real drawback is that some financial literacy is required to make maximum use of their platform. You can click the link for a more in-depth look at them and Seeking Alpha Premium Subscription Coupon.
Final Thoughts
Picking the right research platform will ultimately depend on your personal investment goals. If working in the stock market is something you desire Bulls on Wall Street is probably a good place to start and when you feel comfortable potentially moving on to Earn2Trade. If you’re looking to set aside a portion of your money to trade but don’t want it to take up a lot of your personal time, Carnivore Trading might be right for you. While if you’re looking at your overall portfolio and want flexibility for both long and short-term investing Seeking Alpha is probably the best option.
