Seeking Alpha

Seeking Alpha's rules and regulations allow and sometimes even encourage the publication of misleading and illegal research. The site does not have to disclose whether or not it has a position in stocks that are highlighted in published articles. Anyone with concerns about the site should definitely go to: https://www.change.org/p/israel-securities-authority-impose-oversight-and-contro...⇄

I started a 14-day free trial of premium service on seekingalpha.com (SA for abbreviation). According to their promotion, there should be no charge on me if I cancel it on time. I canceled the subscription precisely the same day I subscribe. However, my credit card has been charged $ 320.80 for an annual fee. The fee was not charged for the premium service but for an unknown service called 'The data driven investor' (DDI for abbreviation).

From the very beginning, I did subscribe to only one service that is a 14-day premium free trial. I did not click on any button by myself to subscribe to and did not agree to use the DDI service, not to say an annual subscription. Only SA did send me a separate email about DDI, which was automatically assigned to me, and the trial period is also 14 days. However, SA sent me too many emails a day that this email did not get my notice. As a result, I did cancel the premium service on time, but I did not cancel the DDI service. That's why I got a charge on my credit card.

It really takes some effort to get my refund. (I here give one more star because Seeking Alpha finally refund.) Take caution; when you subscribe to one service, they may assign additional services behind you. It's their tricks. Read every email in every detail to avoid being charged, not of your own will.

I tried a trial version of Seeking Alpha to read a single premium article and didn't cancel in time and got a $239 charge out of my PayPal account. Contacted them once I saw the charge, told them I hadn't logged in or used the service and asked them to reverse the charge. Seeking Alpha refused. My impression is that its designed to be a "gotcha" so I guess they got me... Their parents must be proud of them that they're so clever. I dont want anything to do with businesses out to hose customers.

Moderators on SA are under educated power hungry low-level grunts practicing censorship and getting off on it when Seeking Alpha do not even understand the material being discussed and its relevance. Seeking Alpha needs to fire their moderation team and hire more qualified people that don't interfere ridiculously with stock forum unless it's absolutely necessary. The moderation team they currently have is a major draw back to anyone participating or continuing on Seeking Alpha and could very well be its demise. As a CEO of my own Company, I would fix this area of my business quickly.

Seeking Alpha's Membership has turned my amateur day trading into a more skillful, informed trader. The daily updates on my portfolio, the ability to see my entire portfolio in one place, and hot tips and articles on stocks that could be manful to me has really helped my game! Strong growth in 2021 based on this knowledge. Portfolio consolidation and ease of seeing everything in one place ( I have several accounts in several brokerages and banks, has made me smarter for sure.

It's too early to tell. I've been sticking my toes in the water since mid-May. How to evaluate the different analyses: Authors, Wall St. And Quant. I would like to think that Quant is the most reliable on average, but remains to be seen. Upgrades and downgrades happen quite quickly from day to day and I'm not willing to be glued to my screen. Still, my portfolio has been in positive territory-- 5%-10%. ATOS was a disappointment, but we'll see what happens.

There are actually some excellent authors on Seeking Alpha (for example Chris Ciovacco, Taylor Dart), but unfortunately, you have to wade through many more snake oil salesman, fear mongers, and just plain incompetent hacks to find them. There is no vetting of authors, so every wannabe "analyst" posts there, and some of them even charge people money to read their garbage analysis. I had one author tell me that fact-checking was too much trouble and would inhibit his productivity LOL. The comments sections are filled with misinformation spread by short-term traders trying to manipulate the gullible investors who also post there. I could live with all of this, I understand it's the internet, but for the incredible hypocrisy of the moderators, who are dumb as a box of rocks. If you dare call somebody a liar or a BS artist and someone complains Seeking Alpha will delete your comment and filter all future comments. Thereafter if you try to say anything that sounds even remotely sarcastic, confrontational, or critical of the moderators, your comment will never appear. Dupe gullible investors by spreading misinformation and lies? THAT'S A OK. Call out someone for said behavior? Comment deleted for personal attack/harsh language, and now they will closely monitor your posts, and if in their infinite wisdom they decide that your post doesn't add value then it simply won't appear. Oh and even if it does appear it will often be hours after you submitted the post. Meanwhile some of their popular authors regularly post childish responses to comments and they aren't monitored at all. BTW, if you email the mods to ask why a certain post is not allowed they will simply ignore you. That's right, the site provides an email address to query the moderators, but it is completely useless since they won't respond to it. See also john W.'s review below, he is right on the money.

Of all the services I use for stock research Seeking Alpha often lacks credibility, integrity, and expertise. Seeking Alpha are basically a pump and dump operation where hedge funds can hide behind pseudonyms or branded tags to trash a stock. Latest example is XON - even Jim Cramer called them out for poor ethics and judgement so that gives you an idea of how low you have stoop. Would not be surprised if editors end up as targets of SEC investigations. Avoid SA like you would an STD

If you try to make a comment Seeking Alpha will delete it if the moderator doesn't think the same. I have had many many comments deleted for no real reason other than the moderators hate the USA and Trump. After responding to a person cursing up a storm and calling President Trump and the US every name in the book I respond with zero curse words, no personal attacks and a mild response. All my comments deleted and theirs remain. I've had it. Not going back.

The website is a great concept. My only problem with it is that a few authors are favored against the others. In their trending section, you will often see the same authors every day.
It would be great if SA authors invested in the stocks Seeking Alpha recommend. But I wonder whether 'prolific' authors like Brad Thomas who writes at times five articles per day really invest in these companies.
Another issue is that Abby Carmel is so biased against a certain group of authors from certain regions. She is a director of contributor success.

"HUSK OF A COMPANY. CLEARLY, A STEAMING PILE OF DOG EXCREMENT" Is what Seeking Alpha published about a tech company I am invested in. They obviously did NO research and support false narratives. An author of theirs was recently sued for libel, falsely stating info while shorting a company they wrote about. FRAUD IN ACTION. I used to think they wrote about stocks. They are CLEARLY manipulating, gouging, and denying affiliation. These are the criminals who make their money by trying to tank small businesses by shorting and writing false narratives. Talk about a husk of a company...

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/i-regret-any-harm-short-seller-compensates-targ...⇄

The comments underneath stories reported in the news are absolutely horrific. The website is extremely toxic when interacting with other users. Everyone is always hurling an insult because someone doesn't have their same viewpoint rather than having a fact-based discussion to analyze a company or story in the news. There is supposed to be a code of conduct but the moderators of the site allow for the worst comments including racism and sexism.

0 stars all the way. The problem with seeking alpha is that it lacks credibility. The articles written by seeking alpha partners are highly opinion based and to be frank. Garbage. Don't listen to advice ever from this company. Not only are the articles bad. Seeking Alpha are painfully dishonest and seeking aloha is most likely receiving money from businesses behaving in fraudulent malpractice behaviour. Look elsewhere advice for your stocks. Apes will never lose!

Spencer Osborne's bio tech picks make a disaster look like an uptick. Nothing but 60 70 80 pct losses and more. Then when you call him out on it the weirdo slanders you prints your name address and accuses you of trying to contact his wife and minor children.If thats not all the creep emails me and threatens me with a harassment if I do not stop commenting on his disasters of stock picks. Seeking Alpha posts his comments on me for a time then takes them down never putting up my response I will continue to voice my opinion on this joke of a blogger(1 star on tipranks)and I am thinking about getting a lawyer and going after this sicko for slander

I wouldn't recommend this site. Their editing is sloppy, and the seem to only be interested in articles that make a stock look better than it is.

I submitted an article, and went through two editorial rounds that were mostly helpful, and I did everything that Seeking Alpha suggested and then the third reviewer apparently only skimmed my article and missed some points that were clearly stated.

Specifically, he/she brought up issues that had passed muster in the two earlier reviews and claimed that I hadn't made the case that the companies cited had inflated some potential savings. The point of my article was that the rumored savings had no basis in fact, and I clearly stated that the source of the misstatement was elsewhere. While I went through all this, they posted an article from someone who knew nothing about the business, who repeated the misstatement that I had debunked.
There is no apparent way to respond to the editors, you just send them your revised article and they come back with a verdict.

Saw article by Gefvert on 3/26/2013 where he was down on CPST. Shows in his profile he has a short position in that company, and that he will not write anything about a company unless he believes it will have an immediate impact on it's stock. It appears he may be trying to drive down CPST stock to cover a short position. Now, whwether or not Capstone's business is sound is another store. I have made money trading their stock, and currently have a small long postion, so this caught my attention. I have studied their financials myself, and if you are investing in them (or any other company) you should do your own due diligence. In the end, the market determines what a stock is worth. There are many highly over valued stocks when viewed from a fundamental perpspective, but Seeking Alpha are what they are in the marketplace. I don't believe any person on seeking alpha or any other site should be able to try and manipulate a stock. I see this story as totally biased.

I have used both the free and the fee services of SA. I believe it is very much worth the $'s and the time spent in reading the articles. Not all of them will apply to your investment plan. But even the one's that don't, give you a perspective on other investment opportunities. As an investor who's goal is dividend yield and growth, I have the opportunity to read those authors' that will provide me with good information. Readers' comments are also useful for new ideas and as a check on an author's support of an investment.

This site is the poorest site for market information and news that I have come across. I joined, and shortly thereafter was not able to post what were clearly respectful, yet factual disagreements with contributors... especially those of HDO, their number one service and biggest income stream, who cranks out "bate" to the tune of several times per week. Seeking alpha protects its income first and foremost:! Fair debate on issues is entirely absent, and the HDO clearly appears to front run their recommendations. Spend your time and money elsewhere! BUYER BEWARE!

I am a Seeking Alpha contributor. I wrote an article that Seeking Alpha published as an "Editor's Pick." It took me months to research and write the article. They never paid me for it. I decided that I did not wish to make pennies an hour, so I never submitted another article. Their policy back then was to only pay when your account's payable reached $100 or more.

I recently received an email that if your account does not reach $100 within any given 12 month period, then they will claw back whatever amount they owe you. So, don't believe them when they say they will pay you. They won't. It is a scam.

Most of the authors have an agenda, the site is completley biased against Technical Analysis, even though many of the authors have good track records. I remember following Sol Palha and Arvy, and suddeny Sol Palha stopped publishing. I asked him why, he responded that Seeking Alpha would not publish any article unless he included fundamental analysi and kept the TA to a minimum. The ironic part is that this author proved himself over and over again through the articles he had published on other sites but they would not have it. So he Sol left and then Arvy also left.

Their premium service now that is a joke, who would pay $200 for such a service. I asked someone that used it for two months, they said got nothing out of it.

I used the SA Blackberry forum for a while. The site has an ulterior motive. Seeking Alpha allow very biased and inflammatory authors to write negative article after article in an attempt to drive down the stock price. It didn't work and the stock doubled, proving the majority of the authors, who were bears, totally wrong. They often delete your comments, and are heavily biased to the bear side. I wonder if the site is into some sort of stock manipulation.

Not every article that Seeking Alpha publishes is awful, but the majority of them are. Very many of the articles are written by college students, and this shows in the sophomoric style of writing, which resembles verbiage tossed together for a term paper due the day after a frat party. The ideas expounded in these articles are usually as uninformed as the writing style is sophomoric. The authors usually have no clue what Seeking Alpha are talking about. Of the remaining articles, most all of them are written by people who have a position in the stock, or often a short position, and are writing an article that strives the manipulate the stock to benefit their position. This is manifest in the articles, and the arguments they present are usually risible. Very few of the articles they publish are worth reading; the majority of the exceptions are articles that were originally published elsewhere and that Seeking Alpha has added to their site. My real concern with Seeking Alpha is the possibility that the editors and owners are selective with the articles that they publish, to benefit the position that they personally own in the stock. This is a loophole of sorts in the SEC guidelines. People who advocate a stock, or who speak negatively of a stock, are required to disclose the position that they hold. But the rules are ambiguous with respect to the owners of a web site such as Seeking Alpha. I am convinced that Seeking Alpha was created primarily to take advantage of this loophole, so that the owners of the site would be able to manipulate individual stocks and get wealthy while doing so, all without breaking any laws. It is inherently difficult for legislation to prevent this kind of thing, and the owners are well aware of this and are taking advantage of it the fullest. The bottom line is that virtually nothing that you read there should be believed.

SeekingAlpha moderators do not allow opposing views in the comments section. I tried to post a factual, on-point response to a comment from "Jason Cawley, Contributor" on article https://seekingalpha.com/article/4225631-bonds-yields-continue-mystify
But my comment was not allowed to see the light of day. I'm cancelling my membership and unsubscribing from their mails ASAP. Censorship will not be tolerated.

I am in my third year of subscribing to The REIT Forum on SA. Given the name, as you would expect, dividends are big part of the focus. It has been surprisingly accurate. I am a long time market investor, but admittedly not an expert. This is not a get rich quick site, in fact, it is pretty much the opposite, steady and conservative, which is why I like it. As the name implies it is all REITs, mReits, with a special emphasis on preferred reits. The chat room is real-time and with savvy investor commentary. The author answers questions rapidly in the chat room. If you are looking for stock tips to get rich quick then you are a fool, Motley or otherwise.

SA used to be much better but now the comments are highly censored and not posted in real time so unless your posts agree with the moderators reading it, Seeking Alpha are simply deleted.

Pathetic at best and anything that isn't pro investing or positive is deleted most days.

Obama trashing is fine, but nothing negative about Trump period.

Even if you have proof that the economy or the middle class is losing ground, it simply will not be posted.

I found something better and you should too.

Readers should be aware that articles are often printed for the purpose of sending the stock up or down. Negative reviews of a company are often designed to send the price down by short sellers who make money by scaring you into believing that the share price will tank shortly.

A good case is the negative reviews of BPT done in a barrage fashion in the last few years, with Seeking Alpha contributors (with short selling aims) warning that it was a 'dividend trap' and going to be dissolved, designed to die, in 2018 and such. Well, these articles did have an immediate effect in 2015, inciting investors to unload their investment and inviting many unsophisticated investors to get into short selling. Well, after a while people began ignoring the doom and gloom reviews and the trust surged with the price of oil. From a low of about $15 in 2015 it is now at $28. Like many energy companies BPT is a straight play on the price of oil. When oil goes up it goes up, it goes up

And therein lies the problem with these sites be it Seeking Alpha, Motley Crew et al. Unless the authors have no stake and are trained investors, you are likely to lose and lose badly following the analysis and recommnedations

Doing research for a school paper and in the middle of reading a publish article the site blocks me and requires that I register for an account. Seeking Alpha want my email address and require that I sign up for at LEAST 5 stock profiles. I'm in school what do I care about stock profiles. Are they that hard up for cash that they need my email address for sale? Sites that require my email address for school research are untrustworthy in my book.

I have subscribed too SA for a few years through a number of authors. Those that I have found to be helpful I have continued to subscribe to. Some I have canceled after the 2 week free subscription time period. Even the few that I have canceled I have learned from. The comments to articles can be off thread. I agree with a few comments here that some of the comments are not appropriate and should not be allowed, but that would restrict freedom of speech. Political comments are not appropriate on a web site used for discussion of investments in stocks or bonds.

I do have a gripe about Seeking Alpha which is that Seeking Alpha don't track their authors results. There are way too many authors for an investor to track their results, but Seeking Alpha should be able to rate an authors results. Supplying readership a specific percentage of results for each recommendation.

When I first started reading SA there were far more free articles about individual stocks than there are now. For what it's worth I think SA should establish rules about authors attempting to pump subscriptions. First and foremost authors that are releasing their articles for public consumption should be required to release them within a week of their release to subscribers, otherwise their information is out dated. Hope this review is helpful.

I have been following many of the writers on seeking alpha for many years. I recently became a premium member and use the information everyday. It gives me perspective on stocks from several authors with different opinions which I find very useful when I am evaluating purchasing a new position. I use this in combination with other services including Stansberry, Oxford Club, Sure Dividend and Kiplinger.

This site has cost me quite a bit of money. Here is a couple of examples. First there is Shopify (SHOP) that was given bad reviews form this site. I've had the stock and sold it and was thinking about getting back in. When I read some of the articles Seeking Alpha had I decided not to get back in. It was a little over 200 at the time. So I did not get back in. It went up to 285. Another stock is Veeva Systems (VEEV). They had some negative articles about the stock and it made me think but I decided to stay with the stock. Today it went up almost 20 points. If I would have sold the stock I would have lost out on this move today. My advice is do not listen to what this site is telling you.