We are Seeking Alpha

Advantages of our approach to investing ideas and analysis

Our approach to investing ideas and analysis has two advantages over traditional investment research and financial journalism:

First, our investment ideas and analysis articles are more actionable. Our articles are written by real investors who are incentivized to uncover investing opportunities and to address issues which may impact their investments. In contrast, hired analysts are paid to cover a fixed list of stocks, and frequently devote time and effort to updates which are not actionable.

Second, our approach generates remarkably broad coverage of stocks and ETFs. We publish over 5,000 investment ideas and analysis articles each month, and cover 8,000 to 10,000 tickers per quarter. This makes us one of the largest providers of equity research in the world. We cover stocks which are not covered by investment banks, and we cover IPOs before the sponsoring investment banks initiate their coverage.

Performance of our investment ideas and analysis

We are able to track the stock picking performance of our contributing analysts accurately, because we require them to rate every stock or ETF they write about. We measure the performance of consensus Strong Buys from our analysts, and compare them to the performance of consensus Strong Buys from sell-side (Wall Street investment bank) analysts. 

Our public, real time tracking of our analysts’ performance shows that Seeking Alpha investor-analysts beat the market. They perform far better than hired sell-side analysts, who trail the market.

The excellent performance of Seeking Alpha’s approach to investment analysis has been confirmed by academic research about Seeking Alpha, which has found that:

• Seeking Alpha articles, as well as reader comments on those articles, predict future stock returns over every time-frame examined, from one month to three years. 

• Investment research posted by Seeking Alpha analysts provides investors with information earlier than sell-side equity research.

• Analysis published on Seeking Alpha helps level the informational playing field between individual investors and professional investors.

Our quant ratings, factor grades and Alpha Picks

In addition to our analysts’ investing ideas and analysis, the Seeking Alpha platform includes “Quant” ratings and grades on stocks. They are determined by quantitative data, such as a stock’s balance sheet and income statement metrics, and historical share price data. Our goal in publishing quantitative ratings and grades is to give investors a rigorous snapshot of a stock or ETF’s characteristics. 

For stocks, our platform offers an overall quantitative rating, and “factor” grades for Valuation, Growth, Profitability, Momentum and EPS Revisions. For stocks that pay dividends, we also publish grades for Dividend Safety, Dividend Growth, Dividend Yield and Dividend Consistency.

For ETFs, our platform offers an overall quantitative rating, and grades for Momentum, Expenses, Dividends, Risk and Liquidity. 

Our quant ratings for stocks have performed exceptionally. Here is our tracking of a portfolio of Strong Buy quant-rated stocks, equally weighted and rebalanced daily. It has significantly outperformed the market. 

Similarly, a portfolio of Sell quant-rated stocks, equally weighted and rebalanced daily, has significantly underperformed the market.  

Because of the outstanding performance of our quant ratings, we created Alpha Picks, which provides investors with two stock picks each month selected by Seeking Alpha’s quant team.

Comprehensiveness of our platform

We have designed our platform to be comprehensive. It includes:

• Analysis articles about stocks and ETFs, with community discussion.

• Proprietary news coverage of stocks and ETFs, with community discussion.

• Earnings call and event transcripts for stocks.

• Seeking Alpha Analyst ratings on each stock and ETF. 

• Quant ratings and factor grades on each US stock.

• Top Stocks and ETFs lists and homepage cards, using SA’s proprietary analyst ratings and quant ratings.

• Stock and ETF screeners using Seeking Alpha’s proprietary analyst ratings and quant ratings, as well as standard financial and investing metrics.

• Portfolio Warnings and Stock Alerts using Seeking Alpha’s proprietary analyst ratings and quant ratings.

• Customizable homepage, using Seeking Alpha’s proprietary analyst ratings, quant ratings and content.