Sometimes investing seems more like a crapshoot than an art, let alone a science. You can pore over data and manipulate charts for hours, read through every submission to the SEC, stare at the fundamentals and calculate ratios until your head starts throbbing and your eyes start bleeding and still make the wrong play. The market is just so unpredictable, so irrational, so infuriatingly volatile that you might as well just buy some index funds and call it a day…right? It’d be one thing if there was some secret code to all of it. Some time-tested tactic that almost guaranteed results, a formula ..read more

How do you pick the perfect stocks? What goes into the creation of the ultimate investing strategies? Does anyone know how to deliver the kind of consistent above-market returns that everyone wants but almost no one can provide? Where do investors turn for some of the best, most accurate information and insights out there? Zacks. Duh. Zacks Investment Research is one of many different firms that produces and provides research and analysis to traders of all shapes and sizes. They’ve been a major player in the space for decades now, and tons of investors rely on their insights to inform what the ..read more

The mobile-first brokerage and (Reddit-legendary) stock trading platform Robinhood recently launched a product that no one saw coming: Robinhood brand IRAs. It was a peculiar choice given Robinhood’s history as the number one choice for /r/wallstreetbets-style meme trading and poorly thought out options trades, but Robinhood’s gone and done it anyway. There’s no shortage of places to set up an IRA—most banks, brokerages, and other financial institutions, for instance—so Robinhood throwing its feathered cap into the ring is kind of curious. Clearly they think they have some unique value proposi ..read more

Seeking Alpha and Morningstar are two of the bigger names among the legions of sites that provide data, charts, and analysis for investors looking to build and better their portfolios. Sure, some services have more impressive charting tools or cover more types of securities or use AI to find trading opportunities, but there’s a very good reason why Morningstar and Seeking Alpha keep finding their way to best of lists all around the net.  To the untrained eye, Seeking Alpha and Morningstar look like they do a lot of the same things. Both have tons of information and research available, bot ..read more

The Holy Grail of investing is as obvious as it is elusive: A winning formula for managing investments that returns above-market returns year after year. It’s the kind of pursuit that seems perfectly feasible for new investors fresh out of Finance 101 classes armed with basic formulas and a half-read copy of Security Analysis, but looms ever larger and more insurmountable as they put their money where their mouths are. It’s not that earning a good return on your investments is that difficult. Anyone can get lucky and place a big bet that delivers an even bigger payoff. The markets would be cal ..read more

Robinhood is a mobile-first stock and ETF trading platform that’s made a name for itself as a straightforward yet surprisingly powerful investing tool. You, like millions of other users, may already be familiar with Robinhood’s free version, but you may not be aware that they offer a paid membership called Robinhood Gold.  So what is Robinhood Gold, anyway? How much does it cost? What does it bring to the table? And most importantly, is it worth it?  Keep reading to find out whether Robinhood Gold is worth the price of admission.  What it Costs Robinhood Gold is pretty cheap. At ..read more

Square Inc (now Block, Inc) launched Cash App back in 2013 for one purpose: to be an app. For cash. It wasn’t a guaranteed win at the time. Their biggest competitor, Venmo, had already been on the market for four years, and Cash App had a lot of ground to cover if it wanted to supplant Venmo as the leader in the peer-to-peer payment game. But here we are, ten years later, and Cash App is neck-and-neck with the biggest players in the space.   Over 70 million people use Cash App on a regular basis. What started as a simple electronic payment app has grown by leaps and bounds, accumulat ..read more

Introduction Healthcare just keeps getting more expensive. Insurance premiums shoot up year after year, employers are willing to cover less and less of the cost, and there’s no sign of anything changing anytime soon. Americans are increasingly turning to high-deductible plans to save money on premiums, but they don’t call them high-deductible plans for nothing. Millions of Americans are just one illness or injury away from thousands of dollars of out-of-pocket expenses that could push them off a financial cliff. So far no solution has been found to our healthcare system’s outrageous affordabil ..read more

Introduction America has some of the best doctors, nurses, healthcare facilities, and medical technology in the world. Our universities and research institutions churn out medical breakthroughs on a daily basis, and our healthcare professionals make medical miracles happen. There’s no denying that the American healthcare system is capable of incredible things. It’s also incredibly expensive.   The Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) found that 19% of US households carried at least some amount of medical debt as of 2017, and there’s little hope that the situation has imp ..read more

There are tons and tons of services out there that promise the best research, the best advice, the best proprietary algorithms and advice, and the best investment tools that can do everything but tuck you into bed at night. Some of them are reasonably priced, but a lot of these services seem to think that it’s okay to charge a mortgage payment’s worth of subscription fees. The average independent trader doesn’t need, want, or have the spare cash to subscribe to more than one of these services, so it’s important to do your due diligence before you enter any credit card details. You’ve read the ..read more