5 Best Investment Websites for Beginners
When I put my first $1,000 into the stock market, I browsed and read through countless investment websites in order to educate myself and make sound investment decisions. The internet offers massive amounts of information, from daily stock picks to rigorous analysis of a company’s share price, but it can also be quite overwhelming.
After spending a while investing in stocks and trying out different online tools, I’ve arrived at this list of five best investment websites for beginners to learn how to invest. This is by no means a comprehensive list nor should you limit yourself to just these five. However, I feel that these are key websites that are critical to success and growth as an investor, and have been integral in my own personal growth as an investor and trader.
StockTwits
StockTwits is a social media platform that allows traders and investors throughout the world to share quick, 140-character insights about particular stocks or the stock market as a whole. Consider it the Wall Street version of Twitter. This platform’s benefits lie in its massive user base and the fact that it is perfectly suited for the fast-paced world of investing. It allows everyday investors to post their thoughts with the filter or wait times of traditional news websites, providing you with real-time access to investors’ thoughts and news.
The platform’s value also lies in the fact that its user base is comprised of a wide variety of investors, from beginners to seasoned Wall Street professionals, giving you a broad range of information and perspectives with which to formulate your investment decisions and ideas.
Be forewarned though, its large user base has made the platform a tool used by stock pumpers, people who either post fake information or try to artificially inflate the price of a stock in order to profit. Make sure to do your due diligence and check other posters’ post history and follower count to gauge their legitimacy.
I’ve met and interacted with a large number of investors and traders through StockTwits, and it has also provided me a platform to share my thoughts and views about the markets. It has played a key role in my own investing education, which is why I placed it on this list.
Seeking Alpha
Seeking Alpha is an investment website that provides crowd-sourced investment analysis of equities. The platform is a great tool for investors and was quite a game-changer when initially introduced because its flat fee structure provides incentive for writers to cover small-cap companies that had previously been ignored by traditional investment websites.
Articles on the website cover everything from analysis and buy/sell recommendations of various stocks to retirement strategies and portfolio allocation advice.
This website’s placement on my list may be a bit controversial as there is some debate over the quality of the articles as many of the writers on the site are everyday investors as opposed to professional investment journalists.
However, I’ve found that exploring different perspectives and absorbing as much information about companies you’re interested in are important in making good investment decisions, and the presence of both everyday investors and seasoned professionals on the site makes Seeking Alpha an ideal platform to do just that.
I’ve learned so much in just a short time both as a reading and writer on Seeking Alpha, and feel that it is one of the best resources to obtain information and analysis of large companies and smaller companies that are overlooked by traditional investment websites.
Investopedia
Investopedia is exactly what it sounds like — a website with tons of information and reference materials for beginning and experienced investors alike. It’s a must-have for anyone serious about his or her investing education, with boatloads of useful information on various topics related to the stock market. Topics covered on the site range from ETF’s to retirement planning, with enough information and data to keep any investor occupied for hours on end.
Investopedia also boasts one of the best, easy-to-use stock market simulators on the web, which starts you off with $100,000 in virtual money and allows you to hone your skills and test your performance without risking a dime.
I’ve used Investopedia both for its information and as a way to test my own investment theses using its simulators, and feel that it is a must-use resource for investors of all skill and experience levels.
TradingView
TradingView is a charting platform that provides essential tools for investors to perform technical analysis. It features both basic and advanced features with almost every technical indicator available (RSI, MACD, Bollinger bands, etc.)
Unlike many other services that charge a fee, TradingView works on a freemium business model that uses ads to generate revenues while also offering a paid option that adds extra features and removes ads.
Technical analysis is a skill whose value is often underestimated or misunderstood by beginning investors — it is a daunting subject and may appear to be a skill only necessary for day traders which leads many to invest without looking at charts. This is a huge mistake as chart-reading and technical analysis are key skills for investors to select good entry and exit points and to be prepared for ups and downs in stock price.
I made the mistake of jumping into investing without knowing anything about charts, and paid for this error by mistiming some of my entry/exit points on different positions I owned. Since then, I’ve increased my usage of charts significantly and have found TradingView to be a very valuable resource.
Investor’s Business Daily
Investor’s Business Daily is an investment website providing news and coverage of the stock market. It also contains useful lists of stocks that are grouped into particular categories, such as “Stocks On the Move” and “Stocks that Funds Are Buying”.
IBD also provides proprietary market research and stock analysis, along with providing paid, specialized services to help investors outperform the market. Its analysis and research are partly based on its famous CAN SLIM system for stock-picking created by William J. O’Neil, founder of IBD.
The depth and wide range of information and research provided by IBD has made it one of my go-to investment websites, earning it a spot on my list.
I’d like to add that I am currently interning for Keel, a great platform to learn how to invest from people who have experience in the field. Keel connects you to successful investors (called Pros) and allows you to view Pros’ portfolios by paying a subscription fee. Investors on different websites and forums are known to brag about and exaggerate performance, but Keel integrates Pros’ personal trading accounts and lets the numbers do the talking. The pre-vetted and hand-selected Pros have over 10 years of experience on average, making Keel a great way to hone your investing skills by following seasoned investors’ trades in real-time.
This concludes my list of top investment websites. If you have any other suggestions you’d like to share with our community, please comment below. Thank you for reading!
Edwin Kye is Keel’s Research Intern.
He began investing due to his passion in sneakers and fashion. To date, Edwin has averaged 25% returns on his investments, which include long/short positions in companies such as Nike, Adidas, and Under Armour.
He has advised analysts at various hedge funds about the footwear industry and the viability of different investment theses, and writes regularly on Seeking Alpha. He also runs a blog at TheSneakerGuru.com, where he comments on various aspects of the fashion and footwear industries from an investor perspective.
Edwin is currently an undergraduate economics major at Cornell University.
Originally published at keel.io.
