Atom Finance Review

Some investors prefer experts to handle their money. Others are hands-on and don’t mind taking matters into their own hands. If you are in the latter category, life can get complicated, especially if you are tracking multiple investment portfolios.

However, there is some good news. In this golden age, investment has been made a little easier than it used to be a while ago. How so? There are a couple of investment tools out there to simplify your investment journey. Some are free, others are reasonably priced, and others will cost you an arm and a leg.

I am sure, as an investor, you have come across free tools, such as Yahoo Finance and Google Finance. You may ask, aren’t these tools adequate? Unfortunately, they are ill-equipped to handle your vast investment needs.

However, beyond the above, there exist other cost-free disruptive finance tools that are well-engineered to suit your investment needs.

Did you say free? Yes. And to that end, let’s dive into one of the free tools, Atom Finance.

Introduction to Atom Finance

What is Atom Finance? Atom Finance is a Brooklyn-based fintech company whose core business is investment research. The company was founded in 2018 and is headed by Eric Shoykhet, who is also the founder.

Even though it’s young, the company is growing fast. Today, it has over 100,000 signups, and the number is growing. It has over $400 million in assets since its launch.

What’s Atom Finance’s objective? Individual investors are always at a disadvantage compared to institutional investors who have an arsenal of sophisticated market intelligence tools. However, with free tools like Atom Finance, the ground is being leveled up.

Atom Finance wants to bridge the gap between amateur and expert investment research platforms available in the market. They want to challenge the investment status quo. Why? Traditional investment platforms like Bloomberg haven’t made significant changes to their product offerings since inception.

Atom Finance Features

To enhance user experience and reduce complexity, Atom Finance is equipped with some basic features. And you access all of them at zero cost.

Let’s have a look at them.

1. Sandbox

Are you a fun of financial models? If your answer is yes, Atom Finance had you in mind when they were creating Sandbox. With the Sandbox feature, you can populate instant finance models with consensus projections.

The beauty with Sandbox is that you can manipulate data as you wish without worrying about formulas. You do not need to export any data in complex spreadsheets for manual computation.

Use Sandbox to forecast stock performance using different scenarios. If there are changes in the market, your financial model will be updated automatically. Overall, Sandbox saves time and hands you control of your investment decisions.

2. Company comparison

This feature enables you to compare the performance of two or more companies. You get to compare stock prices and percentage movement in prices.

This comparison, however, is a bit inadequate when compared to tools like TipRanks. The list of fundamental metrics that Atom Finance offers for comparison is limited. Again, the lack of visual presentation of data, such as graphs and charts, isn’t ideal for quick data comparison.

Remember the watch list you created in Sandbox? Unfortunately, you can’t use Atom’s comparison tool to compare performance with the ones in your Sandbox. Given these limitations, you can rely on other platforms for an in-depth comparison.

3. News Feed

In investment, information is king. And Atom Finance understands this. With the market feed feature, you get current news and topics on investment. Your news will include all the companies and sectors you follow are included in your feed by default.

To ensure you get relevant news, the feed is customizable to the topics you have interest in. To note is that you will not have a wide array of news as you would with Bloomberg and MarketWatch. Quite a number of Atom Finance news is from internal press and Reuters.

Since news feed is not one of the platform’s hallmarks, you can complement it with other news-heavy platforms like Yahoo Finance.

4. Brokerage integration

With Plaid, a third-party service, Atom Finance can connect you to several brokers with view-only access. Plaid integrates with numerous fintech companies and gives them access to customer data (though securely) from financial institutions and brokerage firms. This integration is what facilitates you to view your brokerage data on Atom Finance.

Would you like to activate broker integration in Atom Finance? It’s easy. After setting up your Atom account, click the “link to broker” option. Provide login details, and Plaid will handle the rest behind the scenes. After a few minutes, you will be set to view your brokerage data.

This functionality allows you to track your investments in a single interface and in real-time. You get to see details, such as the current profit and loss, risk exposure, comparisons, trades, and so forth. If you hold brokerage accounts with Robinhood, Webull, and other brokerage platforms, consolidate them in Atom Finance to enable tracking your entire portfolio in one platform.

5. Stock screener

Any stock screener is vital for investors as it allows filtering thousands of investments. With the Atom Finance screener, you can choose metrics for the criteria you want your investment to fit. There are hundreds of metrics to choose from, so narrow down to the critical ones.

The stock screener provides changes in data in real-time, allowing you to keep pace with market trends.

6. X-Ray

We are all familiar with search engines. Right? You will agree they make life easier. Now imagine a similar feature in your investment research tool. It would be fantastic when you want to perform a quick search.

Now, with Atom Finance’s X-Ray functionality, you can dig deeper into the specific company or sector for more content. With this feature, you can search SEC filings, event transcripts, and news stories.

7. Collaborate

This feature allows you to network and share insights with other investors. Through discussion boards and group chats, you connect with fellow investors to exchange opinions and strategies.

8. Portfolio tracking

Have you invested in more than one stock? You will agree with me that tracking different stocks can be daunting. However, with the Atom’s portfolio feature, you can track your investment accounts in one place.

Once you link your investment accounts, you will monitor the following:

• Real-time gains and losses
• Holdings
• Returns
• Diversification and other stats

The feature also allows you to track your portfolio’s performance against the S&P 500 market index. You compare financial metrics such as dividend yields and P/E ratio for your portfolio against the US’s largest publicly trading companies.

How can I open an account with Atom Finance?

There are two options. You can download the app by visiting Google Play or App Store. You can also visit their site and signup. The signup process is easy and will take you less than five minutes. After sign up, be sure to verify your email to access the full functionality of the platform.

When you log in for the first time, you will get pop-up notifications with a summary description of the features you are about to use. You could click “show me around” to have a short tour to familiarize yourself with the site feature.

Is Atom Finance safe?

It’s a free service meaning there is no possibility of a loss of funds. But is your data safe? The tool uses a trusted third-party service, Plaid, to ensure that your data security is safe and secure.

Atom Finance, in its privacy policy, emphasizes the seriousness it takes with the protection of data. And even in the case they share data with third parties, there are restrictions on how they can use the data.

Is Atom Finance worth your time?

Yes, we know that the tool is free. However, being cost-free doesn’t’ mean that it should cost your time. With that in mind, spending time navigating the Atom Finance platform is not a waste of your time. The tool offers comprehensive investment data compared to similar tools.

You will access free, yet helpful institutional-quality features, such as financial modeling, stock alerts, real-time news, brokerage integration, and much more. For an investor, this information is vital to identify stocks primed for appreciation.

Is this tool suitable for all investor types? Maybe, yes and perhaps, not. Features such as financial modeling can be relevant to both first-time investors and seasoned investors. Fundamental investors may also find most of the tool’s features suitable for their investment needs.

However, advanced investors may find the platform insufficient as it does not offer advanced investment tools. They can use the tool to milk as much information, but it would be best to complement it with other robust tools.

What is Atom+?

Earlier in the year, Atom Finance introduced a paid-up service called Atom+. Its development is still at a nascent stage; hence details are still scanty. Atom+ aims to provide comprehensive content on individual stocks and the market. It’s armed with additional hardcore research tools.

However, to join, you apply, and then you are added on a waitlist. All users on the waitlist are granted access in batches from time to time. To shorten your access journey, you can request an invitation from an existing Atom+ user.

What’s the cost of Atom+? There is no pricing information available. However, when launching it, the CEO of Atom, Shoykhet, promised it would cost a fraction of what is being offered by other paid-memberships.