Motley Fool vs Seeking Alpha

Before you invest in the stock market, you need to do a lot of research so that you can know what you are getting yourself into. Luckily for you, there are countless options available on the internet.

From investment research articles and news wires to financial services! All these platforms have their own way of keeping you up to speed with every significant event that is relevant to the workings of the stock market. 

As a serious investor, you should always strive to go for the best option as this would boost your chances of success in the trade.

Luckily for you, we are going to help you make this decision. So, we are going to talk about Motley Fool and Seeking Alpha, which are two platforms designed to help investors in the stock market in various ways.

Let’s see what the services are all about.

Similarities Between the Two Platforms

One thing that cuts across both Motley Fool and Seeking Alpha is that they provide insights and analysis on different stocks. Both of them have their unique means of determining whether an individual stock is worth investing in or not.

Then, both platforms tend to deal with companies that have featured in the news prominently. 

Another thing is that in both Seeking Alpha and Motley Fool, the contributor has to declare their interest in a particular security before writing about them. This would help eliminate any form of bias in the reviews written.

All in all, Motley Fool and Seeking Alpha offer content that is useful to investors, including stock picks, articles as well as exclusive content. 

The Differences

A closer look at both platforms would tell you that there are significant differences between the two services. So, we are going to discuss how these variations come about.

1. Source of Information

There is a major difference in where the content in these two platforms come from. Most of the articles on Motley Fool come from in-house analysts. If you are keen enough, you are likely to observe a consistent trend from one article to another.

On the other hand, the content on Seeking Alpha is crowdsourced from different writers and analysts from diverse backgrounds. So, you can expect a lot of inconsistency, and you may even find different perspectives on companies in the same line of work.

The important thing is that you learn how to adapt to all the variations that come about due to different authors being on the same platform.

2. How the stocks are analyzed

Another difference rises about how these two platforms analyze the stocks. This may explain why it is very unlikely to find recurring information on both services, even when analyzing the same stocks.

Motley Fool tends to put more focus on the economic factors, and it compares the company’s growth to its competitors. The service seeks to determine whether the company has the potential for long-term growth, and the explanation is very straightforward.

As for Seeking Alpha, even though it also focuses on the long-term growth potential, it looks at other factors beyond the economic ones. For instance, it may use technical indicators to determine the company’s earning’s potential in the next two quarters.

Note that the articles in Seeking Alpha may not be easily accessible by the newbies, and you may have to do some more digging on the company’s background for everything to be more apparent to you.

3. The Subscription Services

In both platforms, you will find several subscription services that require some payment from you over a particular period. 

We are going to narrow our scope on two of the most popular services on the two platforms, i.e. Seeking Alpha Premium and The Motley Fool Stock Advisor.

Let’s start with the Stock Advisor, which is a stock picking service that comes as a newsletter every month. In each newsletter, you get two stock picks by the service’s team of analysts, and they come with detailed explanations as to why you should consider investing in them.

If the founder’s claims are anything to go by, Stock Advisor has a remarkable performance record with returns of more than 300% since 2002. 

The pricing is decent at $199 per year, and you may get the service at a discounted rate of $99 per year.

On the other hand, Seeking Alpha Premium is just but an advancement of what Seeking Alpha is already offering. Once you subscribe to the service, you will get access to numerous subscription-only articles on the platform.

Besides that, the platform has audio recordings of investors conference calls which you can download at your own convenience.

The other subscription service on Alpha Premium is the stock screener which allows you to filter stocks according to different criteria as recommended by the platform’s contributors.

To access Seeking Alpha Premium, it will cost you $29.99 monthly or $239.88 per year. 

Which One is Better?

All we can tell you is that the superior service would depend on what you are looking for as a stock market investor. 

If you want an easy time finding the best company to invest in, Motley Fool would be the perfect choice for you. This is because the service’s analysts have done all the hard work for you and done all the research about the company.

And in case you have any doubts on the stock picks you are given, the platform’s track record over time should be enough to calm your nerves while the pricing is unbeatable.

On the other hand, Seeking Alpha is for you if you prefer doing your own independent research on the company. There may be no stock picks in this platform, but the insights and tools that the program offers are going to be of great help for you to discover the best stocks to invest in.

As you can see, there are no short-cuts with Seeking Alpha, and it is going to take up so much of your time. This calls for self-drive and discipline on your part. In the end, you are going to end up with a highly diversified portfolio, and this allows you to spread the risks.

The Alternatives

Since there is no clear winner between Motley Fool and Seeking Alpha, wouldn’t it be great if you found a service that blends the features of the two programs?

Luckily for you, such a service exists, and we shall introduce you to the Action Alerts Plus by Jim Cramer. The service issues you with daily alerts on the stocks to buy and sell. The stocks are many, and so you should look at the ratings before deciding on the best to invest in.

In general, you have a stock picking service that allows you to do independent research on the stocks on the list. This is basically a combination of Motley Fool and Seeking Alpha.