What Are the Best Subscription Services and Tools For Active Traders?
When it comes to active trading (mainly day trading and swing trading), there’s an overwhelming number of potential services and tools to subscribe to. And as a beginner, you often have no real idea what you might need and which ones will actually work.
There are things like alert services, newsletters, and chat rooms – which I’ve had plenty of experiences with back when I first started trading. But none of these subscription services ever had a substantial positive impact on my personal development as a trader.
To a certain degree, this was my fault for starting out with a get-rich-quick mentality and looking for the best copy-cat approach. All I wanted was for some guru to spoon-feed me hot picks. It took me years to realize that this type of approach simply doesn’t work.
What it actually takes to become a consistently profitable trader is proper knowledge (which is the easy part) and then the development of legitimate skills and experience (which is the hard part). Theory and practical application are two entirely different things.
Where most people go wrong is thinking that reading trading books or watching trading videos will provide them with some magical information or foolproof strategy. But just like in sports, you need to develop specific trading skills in order to excel.
Top 3 Day Trading Subscription Services and Tools Available Online:
As stated previously, there are no foolproof strategies – every strategy/system goes in and out of favor based on current market conditions. So what sets great traders apart from the masses is their ability to adapt. Strategies die, but skills last forever.
The 3 day trading subscription services and tools detailed below are the best ones I’ve found over the course of nearly a decade to help skilled traders consolidate their operations, refine their strategies, and increase their edge in the markets.
BENZINGA PRO → |Read Full Benzinga Pro Review| – Best Feature: Stock Newsfeed
Benzinga Pro is a platform best known for its fast and reliable stock market newsfeed, but it actually offers many more features than that – including the ability to create watch lists, track company earnings announcements, run customized scans, filter for unusual options activity, and much more. It also offers an audio squawk feature where the biggest stock market news is announced throughout the day. The value of the Benzinga Pro service can vary depending on the type of trader/investor you are, but the good news is that they offer a free 2-week trial for new users interested in checking it out – so you can test it out for yourself firsthand.
FINVIZ ELITE → |Read Full Finviz Elite Review| – Best Feature: Stock Screener
Finviz is one of the first trading tools I ever used – and is one that I still use to this day – which goes to show how well this tool has stood the test of time. There are two free versions of Finviz with limited functionality, but if you want an ad-free layout with the full suite of features (real-time quotes, backtesting capabilities, advanced scans/charts, and much more), then you can subscribe to Finviz Elite. Just like how Benzinga Pro is known for its newsfeed, Finviz is known for its screener. But again, Finviz offers more than just an exceptional screener – it offers heat maps, insider transactions, news articles, portfolio tracking, email notifications, and more.
TRADE IDEAS → |Read Full Trade Ideas Review| – Best Feature: Stock Scanner
Trade Ideas is another great platform for active traders that features one of the best real-time stock scanners. If you’re thinking – what’s the difference between Finviz’s stock screener and Trade Ideas’ stock scanner? – you’re probably not alone. They’re similar in the sense that you can customize them both based on specific criteria and the use of filters. But the Finviz screener you need to manually run (click a button each time you want to see updated results). The Trade Ideas’ scanner, however, has the power to continuously update in real-time as price, volume, and other data fluctuates. Trade Ideas offers many other features as well.
Keep in Mind – The Best Day Trading Services and Tools Don’t Equal Automatic Success:
I think one of the biggest mistakes new traders make is failing to actually learn how to trade. And learning how to trade doesn’t just mean passively consuming information in the form of a book, video, or course – it means building skills through experience.
So if you think that merely subscribing to a trading tool like Benzinga Pro, Finviz Elite, or Trade Ideas is going to automatically make you a great trader – you’re wrong. They’re certainly powerful tools, but not in the hands of unskilled, inexperienced traders.
For that reason, I highly recommend anyone truly passionate about becoming an elite trader to focus on legitimate education, training, and mentorship first. Once you actually develop skills through training, these top-rated tools can be icing on the cake.
Most people expect these tools to make them rich virtually overnight. But this kind of expectation would be like handing someone a hammer and expecting the possession of the tool alone to make them a great carpenter. But that’s just not how it works.
You need specific skills for tools to be effective. Powerful tools in the hands of unskilled, inexperienced individuals are extremely dangerous. This is why legitimate training first is preferable, in my opinion, followed by powerful tools to stack on top of those skills.
So if you have the skills – these tools can potentially be a great fit for you. But if not, focus on training and skill-building first.
Learn More in the Trading Success Framework Course
Written by Matt Thomas (@MattThomasTP)
Related Pages:
- Best Swing Trading Sites and Services For Beginners
- Can You Learn How to Trade By Watching YouTube Videos
- Day Trading Courses – Beginners Guide to Trading Education
- Where to Start Day Trading – Best Resources For Beginners
- Why is Day Trading So Hard – The Realities of Day Trading
I just started investing this past september. I understand day trading is much different though and i have been looking into it but I’d rather have a bigger computer setup before starting to day trade. im familiar with robinhood, webull, stash, and my newest is moomoo. this something i genuinely want to do but i’m not sure i have the patience for it.
Hi Nick – that patience would just have to be cultivated through practice (and some mindfulness/meditation would probably help quite a bit – it certainly helped me). In the end, it’s entirely up to you to decide if day trading is something you truly want to pursue, but keep in mind that there are no naturals. Every great trader I know has had to develop the proper technical, analytical, and mental skills in order to operate effectively within the market environment. In many ways, the skills needed to become a disciplined, balanced, and patient trader go against human nature (like our negativity bias, cravings for certainty, etc.). Many people don’t realize it, but we have to rewire our brains for trading success – that’s where the bulk of the hard work is.