Updated May 15, 2025 8:24 AM PT

Best Stock Picking Services

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Looking for recommendations on which stocks to invest in? Then you might like a stock picking service. Read on to learn about some of the best.

Which is the best stock picking service?
The best stock picking services are:
  1. Motley Fool Stock Advisor best overall
  2. Alpha Picks by Seeking Alpha for buy and hold
  3. Moby for beginners
  4. FINQ for AI stock picks
  5. Mindful Trader for swing trading
  6. Morningstar for mutual funds and ETFs
  7. Zacks for fundamental investors
  8. Trade Ideas for day trading

Choosing the right investments is tricky. You have to analyze tons of data, then buy and sell at the right time.

Luckily, stock picking services exist. This way, you can let the experts or AI select the best stocks to buy or sell based on an investing system. But which one is best?

In this article, learn about the top stock picking services in the industry, including their cost, key features, and special offers.

For a detailed comparison of the top stock picking platforms, check out our review of Seeking Alpha vs Motley Fool vs Morningstar.

The Best Stock Picking Services for Every Investor

Continue reading to find the stock picking service that suits your budget and has features you like.

Motley Fool Stock Advisor - Best Overall

Price: $199 per year[1]

What you'll get:

  • 2 monthly stock picks.
  • Email notification when it's time to sell.
  • Fool IQ
  • Rankings of the 10 best stocks to buy each month.
  • Access to Gameplan (retirement and planning hub).
  • 3 modes to choose from: cautious, moderate, and aggressive.
  • Full access to all investment research, including articles, videos, podcasts, and eBooks.
  • Membership fee-back guarantee (cancel within 30 days for a full refund).

Why you should subscribe to Motley Fool Stock Advisor:
Since its inception in 2002, the Motley Fool Stock Advisor has consistently outperformed the S&P 500 with its stock picks.

It's one of the best deals among stock picking services, since you'll already get 2 stock picks monthly for just $199 per year. With 3 investing styles to choose from, you'll surely find a portfolio that fits your risk profile.

The Stock Advisor is designed to be held long term, but if it's time to sell a stock, you'll get an email notification.

And if you feel like this service is not for you, you could always cancel anytime in the first 30 days and get your money back.

If you'd like more stock picks per month, consider the Motley Fool Epic service which provides 5 monthly stock picks composed of growth, dividend, and under-the-radar stocks.


Alpha Picks by Seeking Alpha - Best for Buy and Hold

Price: $499 per year[2]

What you'll get:

  • 2 stock picks per month.
  • Sell alerts when ratings shift.
  • Access to exclusive webinars hosted by the quant team.
  • Immediate access to all Alpha Picks (over 30 stocks).

Why you should subscribe to Alpha Picks:
Alpha Picks by Seeking Alpha has outperformed the S&P 500's gains. On top of that, its stock picks are based on in-depth qualitative, data-driven research—meaning subjectivity is out of the picture.

Alpha Picks are designed to be bought and held for capital appreciation, not dividend income. But the good thing is, you don't have to trade frequently—just check the monthly updates and watch out for buy and sell signals.

If you don't need outright stock recommendations, check out Seeking Alpha Premium to learn more about investing in general.

Moby - Best for Beginners

Price: $199 per year or $29.95 monthly[3]

What you'll get:

  • 3 weekly stock picks
  • Easy-to-understand reports (no jargon)
  • Weekly stock and crypto reports from hedge fund analysts
  • Unlimited, full-platform access to all investment reports
  • Discord community with traders
  • Email and SMS market alerts
  • Daily market newsletters
  • Sector rankings and lists
  • Money-back guarantee (cancel within 30 days for a refund)

Why you should subscribe to Moby Premium:
Moby Premium has a track record of outperforming the competition. They go after overlooked stocks that are set to rally—even if Wall Street hasn't caught on yet. So far, they've made over 75 stock recommendations that delivered gains of 100% or more.

Each week, you'll get 3 stock picks. You'll also have unlimited access to their library of hedge fund stock recommendations, all designed to grow your net worth.

And it's not just stocks. You'll also get weekly crypto recommendations. Since crypto can be tricky and volatile, Moby breaks it down and helps you determine which coins are worth your attention.

FINQ - Best for AI Stock Picks

Price: $350 per year

What you'll get:

  • Top 10 stocks to long (FINQFIRST).
  • Top 10 stocks to short (FINQLAST).
  • Top 10 stocks to both short and long for a market-neutral strategy (FINQNEUTRAL).
  • Real-time email notifications on model portfolio changes.
  • Daily update on relative stock rankings.
  • STOCKS DEPOT & FINQFULL

Why you should subscribe to FINQ:
FINQ is the all-in-one AI-powered tool designed to beat the stock market. You can use its AI-driven and Big Data analytics platform to build your own portfolio and optimize your investments effortlessly.

You can choose between 3 investing strategies: long, short, or market-neutral—accommodating all types of investors.

By using AI, you're investing based on 100% data, eliminating the possible biases of analysts when selecting stock picks.

Mindful Trader - Best for Swing Trading

Price: $47 per month[4]

What you'll get:

  • Daily stock picks and options picks
  • Access to the detailed tutorials about Mindful Trader's stock and options trading strategies
  • Regular emails with commentary about the trades being made

Why you should subscribe to Mindful Trader:
Buy and Hold isn't for everyone. For day traders or swing traders looking to take advantage of medium to short-term price changes, Eric's Mindful Trader is worth checking out.

Eric sends about 1–3 stock picks daily via text or email. He includes a take-profit and stop-loss price along with the trade picks, so you can just set it and forget it. However, if there's no valid setup at all, there can be days or weeks without any trades opened.

Mindful Trader's picks also extend to options trades. Usually, these options trades have an expiration date of 1 week.

So, if you're looking for daily stock and options recommendations, consider Mindful Trader.

Morningstar - Best for Mutual Funds and ETFs

Price: Morningstar Investor costs $249/year (monthly plan costs $34.95/month)[5]

What you'll get:

  • Morningstar's proprietary ratings.
  • Simplified and enhanced security screening.
  • Portfolio management tools.
  • Custom views for portfolios, watchlists, and screeners.
  • Unlimited access to all data available on Morningstar.com.
  • Unlimited access to expert analysis, including reports, commentary, news, and more.

Why you should subscribe to Morningstar Investor:
Morningstar's scale for rating mutual funds is so well-respected that it's used by many top brokerages.

While the Morningstar Investor membership offers up a wealth of knowledge, it will be more suited to investors willing to do a bit of research. Morningstar mainly offers detailed instead of specific picks.

Membership comes with access to detailed metrics on different stocks, as well as a list of "Best Investments," which can help you narrow down the companies worth exploring. Their interface is easy to navigate and is invaluable for investors of all experience levels.

What's the best free stock picking service?
While you will have to pay for access to the Motley Fool Stock Advisor content, the Motley Fool has a fair quantity of free material available as well. If you're looking for advice on picking stocks that aren't locked behind a paywall, the Motley Fool is a good place to start.

Zacks - Best for Fundamental Investors

Price: $59/month or $495/year for Investor Collection[6]

What you'll get:

  • ETF Investor
  • Stocks Under $10
  • Zacks Premium
  • Home Run Investor
  • Value Investor
  • Zacks Top 10 Stocks
  • Income Investor
  • Zacks Confidential

Why you should subscribe to Zacks Investor Collection:
There's one strategy that's been recommended since people first started writing about the stock market: understanding the fundamentals. That's exactly what Zacks Investment Research offers its subscribers.

It might not be as flashy or exciting as a stock-picking algorithm, but it's the approach many of the most well-regarded investors in history have relied on. While each Zacks portfolio has a different goal, most of them typically make 2–4 trades per month.

$495 a year might feel a bit pricey to some, but you're getting a bundle of all of Zacks' top subscription services in one go.

Choosing the right stocks is only half the battle—tracking them is just as important for building a successful portfolio. Discover the best stock tracking apps to enhance your investment strategy.

Trade Ideas - Best for Day Trading

Price: $1,068 per year for The Birdie Bundle; $2,136 per year for The Eagle Elite[7]

What you'll get:

  • 2nd Gen AI Signals (The Money Machine)
  • 1st Gen AI Signals (Holly)
  • Backtesting and Paper Trading
  • Auto Trading
  • Smart Risk Levels
  • Channel Bar

Why you should subscribe to Trade Ideas:
Some think that stock picking is an expert's game. But Trade Ideas thinks it's a job for AI. Using a proprietary market scanner, Trade Ideas' AI, Money Machine, identifies stock picks automatically and sends alerts to subscribers.

With Money Machine, you get an AI system for live momentum trading. You can automatically monitor and rank stocks. Plus, you could automate your entry and exit points in live markets.

With frequent updates and adaptive recommendations, both day traders and long-term investors can get valuable insight from Trade Ideas. They also provide a paper trading account to let you see how the recommendations perform in the market without actually spending anything.

That said, full access to Trade Ideas is fairly expensive and may price out lower net worth investors.

What is the best day trading service?
Trade Ideas may be the best stock picking service available for day traders. Its proprietary AI and numerous algorithms run around the clock to identify trading opportunities that may go missed by a merely human observer. It comes with a sizable price tag, but if you're looking for the biggest edge as a day trader, Trade Ideas may be worth it.

More Trading Websites Worth Checking Out

The stock picking services we discussed above provide great content for investors, but they're not the only services available. Below, we'll take a quick look at some other popular investing services that may be worth a look. Let's see what they have to offer.

Danelfin

Danelfin is a stock analytics platform powered by Explainable Artificial Intelligence. It rates stocks and ETFs with an easy-to-understand global AI Score, ranging from 1 to 10.

The higher the score (7-10), the higher the probability of that stock beating the market in the next 3 months. It also has trade ideas per stock, which shows its win rate. Full access to Danelfin Pro costs $624 per year or $35 per month.[8]

Warrior Trading

If you're looking to learn more about day trading, but don't have piles of money to throw around, you might want to take a look at Warrior Trading. This platform provides stock picking insights and learning opportunities for traders who are still finding their feet in the market.

Warrior Trading provides investors with interactive content, trading screens, and access to a chatroom with a video and audio feed, so that you can follow along and learn, get to know other traders, share strategies, and get your questions answered.

If you want to see just what you're getting into, you can check out Warrior Trading on YouTube, where they post free educational content and daily recaps, making it one of the more transparent stock picking services on this list. Its membership fee starts at $997 (one-time).[9]

Yahoo! Finance

While Yahoo! might not be the biggest name in search anymore, Yahoo! Finance is still a powerful resource for investors looking to keep up to date on the state of the market.

On Yahoo! Finance, you'll find a range of content including market stats, recent financial news, and commentary on the latest developments in the business world. You can use it to track your portfolio as well as see what stocks are trading most actively day-to-day.

If you're interested in more exclusive content, consider signing up for Yahoo! Finance plans, where you get access to reports and other information not available to free users. The Silver Plan is $24.95/month, while the Gold plan costs $49.95/month.[10]

What is the best stock alert service?
If you're looking for real-time stock alerts, consider Trade Ideas, whose proprietary AI scans the market for signals to identify good investments. Trade Ideas stock alert services don't come cheap, but if you can afford the price, you may be able to get access to insights you couldn't get from a mere human advisor.

What Does a Stock Picking Service Do?

Stock picking services do exactly what the name suggests: they help you pick stocks. These services use a range of algorithms to identify companies that are worth investing in.

They'll look at extensive data and review metrics like market share, quarterly earnings, and more. By doing this, stock picking services can help you understand the financials of a company better than doing it on your own.

Many stock picking services operate as subscription newsletters, apps, or private websites. While a lot of data analysis goes into stock picking, they don't provide personalized recommendations like a financial advisor would.

Are stock picking services worth it?
Stock picking services are definitely worth the expense to the right consumer. If you're the type who enjoys the act of research, then you might be better off saving the money and choosing the stocks yourself. But if you're not interested in devoting a lot of time to stock picking, then using a service may be a good investment.

What to Look for in a Stock Picking Service

Choosing the right stock picking service takes a bit of digging. But there are some key metrics you can look at to help identify the best stock picking services out there.

Track Record
Find out how the service's recommendations have performed over time. How do their returns compare to the market as a whole? If this information isn't available, or if they have a history of mediocre picks, you might want to give them a pass.

What is your risk appetite for stock investment?

Workability
Not everyone is certified as an institutional investor, and high-net worth individuals are privy to opportunities that normal folk aren't. Make sure that the stock picking service you choose isn't recommending trades that you're incapable of making.

Institutional investors may get access to the same stocks at lower prices than everyone else, making the recommendations viable for them, but lead to losses for normal investors.

Cost
Of course, you don't want to scrimp on a stock picking service and get bad recommendations. But keep in mind that the more you spend on a service, the more you'll need to earn just to break even.

Make sure that you're not spending more than you're earning. If two services offer the same quality of advice, choose the less expensive one.

Learning Opportunities
Many stock picking services offer educational materials that will help you become a more effective investor. Peruse them at your leisure, but don't miss the opportunity to further your investing education.

Who has the best stock picking record?
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor has an outstanding record of picking the right stocks, with returns as high as 4x that of the S&P 500 from 2002 to 2021. If you had invested $10,000 in the stocks they recommended back then, by now you'd have turned it into over $350,000.

What are the Best Strategies in Picking Stocks?

There are probably about a million strategies out there for picking stocks, and everyone will tell you that theirs is the right one.

Plenty of them have their merits, but be wary of anyone telling you they can predict the stock market. That said, there are strategies that you can employ to improve your chances of picking good stocks. Let's take a look at a few:

Earnings
When trying to identify a company worth investing in, earnings are an easy metric to use. While increased earnings term-over-term isn't a guarantee of long-term growth or success of a company, it is a sign that they're doing something right, at least for now.

Competition
Understanding a company means understanding it in the context of its competitors. No company exists in a vacuum.

By identifying the strongest companies in a specific industry, you can effectively pick the best stocks within that market.

Dividends
Slow but consistent growth of dividends paid by a company can be a good indicator of long-term prosperity and help you identify companies that are in it for the long haul.

Be wary of companies whose dividend payouts increase dramatically over a short period, as this can be a sign that they are in financial trouble and are trying to attract new investors to plug gaps.

If you want to manage your dividends more efficiently, take a look at the best dividend trackers that can help you stay on top of your dividend-paying stocks.

Leadership
Search for a company led by strong leaders with clear goals. This will give you confidence that the management will make smart decisions for the company's future and growth.

Consider their executives' experience, the length of their tenure, and how transparent they are about the company's business with shareholders.

Optimize these strategies with the best stock advisor website for smart investing.

Bottom Line

Picking the right stocks can seem like a challenge, but with the right tools and the right help, it doesn't have to be.

If you're in the market for a stock picking service, there are some out there for every style of investor. Whether you're looking for someone to tell you exactly what to buy and when to sell, or simply access to a wealth of raw data, there are services that offer each.

And the same goes for whether you intend to buy and hold or trade hourly. Once you've found the right stock picking service, you'll be well on your way to a solid investment career.

References

  1. ^ The Motley Fool. The Motley Fool Stock Advisor, Retrieved 04/17/2025
  2. ^ Seeking Alpha. Alpha Picks, Retrieved 04/19/2025
  3. ^ Moby. Moby Premium, Retrieved 04/17/2025
  4. ^ Mindful Trader. Mindful Trader Stock Picking Service, Retrieved 04/19/2025
  5. ^ Morningstar Investor. Pricing, Retrieved 05/05/2025
  6. ^ Zacks. Zacks Investment Research: Stock Picks, Retrieved 04/19/2025
  7. ^ Trade Ideas. Pricing, Retrieved 05/05/2025
  8. ^ Danelfin. Danelfin Pricing, Retrieved 04/19/2025
  9. ^ Warrior Trading. Pricing, Retrieved 04/19/2025
  10. ^ Yahoo! Finance. Pricing, Retrieved 05/05/2025

Jeremy Harshman is a creative assistant at CreditDonkey, a personal finance comparison and reviews website. Write to Jeremy Harshman at jeremy.harshman@creditdonkey.com. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for our latest posts.

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