Day trading has two different yet equally important components: trade execution and finding the right stocks to trade.
If you fail to identify stocks that have a good profit potential, then all the trade execution skill in the world is useless, just like if you find some hot stocks but don’t know how to properly manage your trades.
The best way to find the right stocks to trade is to use the various stock market news sources that have cropped up to service the rapidly expanding retail trading sector. These new sources for market information are much more user-friendly, appealing and open-ended when compared to traditional sources of financial news.
That said, not every source of market information is the right for all traders. So let’s look at the top 3 sources of financial news for helping you find the right stocks to trade.
Stocktwits
Stocktwits is a social media platform that allows members to post Tweet-like messages about certain securities and link them with a ‘cashtag’.
Stocktwits offers a very appealing and user-friendly interface, and anyone who is familiar with Twitter will quickly feel at home when using Stocktwits. Stocktwits offers a wide range of tools for users to identify and track securities and associated comments, so it is a very effective tool for zeroing in on potential trades and getting the latest relevant information and opinions.
The main drawback of Stocktwits is that it is largely unregulated and unmoderated, so it can sometimes be difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. There is undoubtedly a ton of great tips for finding stocks to trade on Stocktwits, but sometimes it can be hard to find it among all the background noise.
If you have the patience to sift through a huge amount of information to access inside tips about stocks that you can’t find anywhere else, then Stocktwits is a great addition to your day trader’s toolkit.
Seeking Alpha
Seeking Alpha is a platform for experienced investors and financial professionals to sell their analysis and other services to interested traders.
Seeking Alpha is basically a platform for connecting interested users with investment professionals that have advice, analysis and insight to sell. The site has vetted authors and an editorial team, and offers a variety of ways for evaluating and tracking authors. It is then up to the user to find authors, content and services that offer them actionable trading ideas.
The ability of a trader to use Seeking Alpha for identifying the right stocks to trade all comes down to finding the right authors and service providers that meet your specific trading needs. This comes with a reasonable investment of time and effort as you find the right authors for your specifics needs, but once you start tracking the right people, Seeking Alpha can be a consistent and reliable source of actionable trade ideas.
Seeking Alpha is ideal for day traders who want to develop a list of knowledgeable and experienced advisors to follow, but much less so for traders who just want to quickly browse a site for random leads and ideas.
Ticker T.V.
Ticker T.V. offers traders a variety of services, but one of the best sources of financial information is the stock news feed in the top left corner of the homepage.
Ticker T.V.’s stock news feed offers brief but incisive analysis of the day’s stock trading action. This focus on the details of specific stock movements is something that few other sites can compete with, as they tend to look at broader picture news stories or big market names. Ticker T.V., on the other hand, offers quality analysis of the stocks that are moving that session, so that you can quickly find potential stocks to trade and get the information that you need to develop actionable trading ideas.
Some traders may find Ticker T.V.’s offerings to be a little limited, but it is more a case of specialization in covering the stock market’s big movers of the day.
If you want quick and simple access to the day’s top moving stocks, then Ticker T.V. is a must-have for your day trading arsenal.
