It is actually more important to see how the stock reacts to the news than the actual news itself. But it is important to always know why a stock is moving. Every great trader knows which types of news catalysts are conducive to their trading strategy.
Having a tool that provides you live news on the stocks you own or are watching is extremely helpful. The best news tools can alert you before a major market move occurs. Today we will talk about my 3 favorite tools for trading the news.
Seeking Alpha
Seeking Alpha is a crowd-sourced content service for financial markets. They are a great resource if you are trying to get immersed in the stock market, and they also provide a great ‘breaking news’ tool. Seeking Alpha lets you follow up to 5 stocks for free, and you will get live updates on all of these stocks emailed to you. It is a great tool for staying on top of stocks in your portfolio if you are on a tight budget.
They also have a paid version called SA PRO alerts, where you get key articles on as many stocks as you want emailed to you 24/7. SA PRO alerts cost $10 a month. For momentum day traders, usually this news service isn’t fast enough to catch market moving news right as it happens. It is a great tool if you are trying to keep trading expenses low, but it is more suited for swing traders and longer term investors. Check out Seeking Alpha news services here.
Briefing.com
Briefing is a great resource to check every morning to a get a quick and easy breakdown of what stocks are moving on what catalysts every morning. It provides minute-to-minute actionable maret news headlines, analysis, and commentary along with useful calendars of evenings like earnings reports, conferences, and government data.
Briefing offers 3 different packages, and each have free trials: Briefing In Play, Briefing In Play Plus, and Briefing Trader. “In Play” is $50 a month, “In Play Plus” is $75 a month, Briefing Trader is the most expensive package at $300 per month. All 3 offer breaking news alerts, and provide headlines and live research that intra-day and short-term traders need to trade the news ahead of major market moves.
The main difference between “In Play” and the two more expensive packages is that they offer trading signals in addition to news headlines. When you are a seasoned trader, the signals really aren’t necessary because you have your own trading system, and you don’t need someone with a different system telling you when to buy and sell. For most traders, I recommend the “In Play” package. If you want live audio, you have to get the “Briefing Trader” package. Learn more about Briefing.com here.
Benzinga Pro
This is my personal favorite tool for trading the news. It is a web-based news platform that is designed specifically for momentum traders like us. It provides real-time news streaming services, market screeners, and audio alerts.
The “squawk” feature is very useful when you are a momentum trader and you want to move fast. By the time you read the news, there is a chance that the best entry spot might be gone. It’s like having CNBC but without all of the excess noise. They do a great job filtering the news so that it is quality alerts over quantity. You can filter it so that you only get news alerts from stocks on your watchlist.
It is not a cheap tool, as it is $147 a month. However it is much cheaper than “Briefing Trader”. The main reason I prefer Benzinga Pro to Briefing.com is that it gives audio alerts for $153 less a month. Check out Benzinga Pro here. Use code ‘bulls25‘ for a discount off your package.
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