Best Investment Newsletters

Do you know what’s going on in the markets right now?

Sure, you have some inkling – and perhaps you’re even quite aware of what’s going on in a few subsections that interest you. But the entire market? Let’s not kid ourselves, that’s a tall order – especially for one person.

Just finding the information that can give you that knowledge, let alone absorbing it and analyzing it would take way too much time and effort. But the market is interconnected – a change in one area could easily affect another, and without an overview of the whole, who knows how many good opportunities you might miss? 📚

This is where investment newsletters come in. They come in various forms, and fill various niches – but the overarching idea is to provide you with a quick, easily-digestible overview of the state of the market.

And there’s a ton of them. We’re not kidding – if there are just 10 people interested in a topic, it most likely already has a newsletter. Parsing through that mass of content is tough, and picking the right newsletters is hard if you don’t know what to look for. We do know what to look for – and we’re here to help you.

Based on certain universal criteria—such as price, accessibility, and track-record, we’ve selected six of the best investment newsletters for the aspiring investor. Keep in mind that you’re not limited to one newsletter – so long as you’re not overwhelmed with the amount of information coming your way, you can subscribe to multiple newsletters. In fact, the newsletters we’ve covered aren’t actually competitors, as they all fill different niches. 🤓

1. 5MF – Five Minute Finance – Best Overall

Five Minute Finance is the first newsletter we’re going to be covering today. To be fully transparent, the newsletter is produced by The Tokenist (that’s us) – but we still have plenty of objective reasons as to why Five Minute Finance is #1.

Five Minute Finance is sent out via e-mail every Friday. The idea behind the newsletter is fairly self-explanatory – a short, digestible yet deep, five-minute overview of the most important trends each week.

The newsletter currently boasts 11,752 subscribers, and every edition covers five topics that the team of editors considers the most eventful in that particular week. This can range from ‘TradFi’ or traditional finance such as the stock market, to FinTech developments and digital assets like Bitcoin and NFTs. 

It also includes some of the most relevant Twitter discussions pertaining to the markets – anything that generates buzz is worth your attention. The fact of the matter is, sometimes official and high-brow channels don’t pick up on important topics on time and get left in the dust. Look no further than GameStop for a recent and poignant example.

This isn’t a specialized newsletter – meaning beyond digital assets, it doesn’t have a niche focus. Rather, it maintains a bigger picture, macro-economic perspective. So anything that’s worth mentioning will be included – for example, if the U.S. government introduces legislation which is anticipated to affect the markets, that will also be covered.

By the way, did we mention that the newsletter is completely free? We consider that a fair shake – the newsletter doesn’t specialize in any particular topic (although it does end up covering cryptocurrencies the most), and it doesn’t go too in-depth, but that’s by design. The goal here is to keep you informed – without any serious commitment (in terms of time) on your end.

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2. The Motley Fool – Best for Actionable Advice with Stocks

Inimitable, irreverent, and undeniably influential, The Motley Fool is a powerhouse in the world of finance news. It offers several distinct newsletters – but unlike Five Minute Finance, for example, these aren’t just newsletters – they’re also stock picking services.

The Motley Fool’s origins lie way back in the 1990s. In 1993, brothers David and Tom Gardner founded the company, and just a year later, a series of their humorous online messages regarding a fake penny stock propelled the Motley Fool to fame.

The Fool offers a variety of stock-picking services. Unlike many other newsletters, these actually tell you what to invest in. We’ll cover both the flagship services, Stock Advisor, as well Motley Fool’s Rule Breakers.

The Stock Advisor comes in at an annual price of $99 for new members. Unfortunately, after the first year, the subscription cost rises to $199. While that does reduce accessibility somewhat, you’ll quickly see that the product is worth the price. Keep in mind, however, that you can also make use of a 30-day membership-fee-back guarantee.

Stock Advisor releases two new stock picks each month along with Best Buys Now and Starter Stocks. The Fool’s in-house team of researchers, together with Tom Gardner, publish very in-depth explanations as to why they chose those specific stocks.

Now, having any sort of expert recommendation is a godsend – but the Fool’s track record is, simply put, stellar. Since the service’s inception, it has shown average returns of 373%* – far outclassing the average returns of the S&P 500. Some of their picks have experienced incredible growth (12,718% in the case of Amazon (recommended on 9/6/2002), 17,849% in the case of Netflix (recommended on 12/17/2004), for example.)

Another Motley Fool service, Rule Breakers, operates much the same way – for $99 a month, you’ll receive with two stock recommendations. However, the difference is that Rulebreakers focuses more on growth stocks – stocks belonging to companies that are in the running to become industry leaders and that have tremendous growth potential.

Most of the Rulebreakers’ picks will obviously be tech stocks – but if you’ve got the stomach for a little more risk and volatility, Rule Breakers also might be worth picking up.

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3. Seeking Alpha – Best for Fundamental Analysis

Seeking Alpha is another unique case – although it might function similarly to a newsletter, when you look under the hood, you’ll come to realize that this is a pretty unique service.

Seeking Alpha was founded in Israel in 2004, with the goal of becoming the first major crowd-sourced online community that deals with investing. It currently has more than 10 million users, and the sheer volume and quality of the content that they produce and publish is incredible. They also offer clients a vast array of useful tools – but you’ll need quite a bit of experience to make proper use of them.

Seeking Alpha has three membership tiers – basic, premium, and pro. The basic plan is free, however, the premium plan offers a subscription of $119 per year for new subscribers. PRO plan includes a commission of $70 per month and $250 per year.

The basic plan gives you access to Seeking Alpha’s articles and blog posts, as well as 15 different newsletters. While that’s nothing to scoff at, the true value in Seeking Alpha’s products is found in the two paid subscriptions.

The premium plan gives you access to a variety of more specialized content, exclusive newsletters and interviews, as well as access to recordings of big companies’ earnings and conference calls. On top of that, the premium plan makes for a more ad-light experience, and allows you to see the ratings of all the published authors on the website.

You might already guess where this is going – the pro plan gives you access to even more exclusive newsletters, stock screeners, and various trading ideas, as well as Seeking Alpha’s unique stock quant ratings, financial statements, as well as email alerts.

Seeking Alpha’s entire toolkit is geared toward long-term, buy-and-hold investing that relies on fundamental analysis. Not only is it a rather large toolkit, but it also takes some skill to use – the service isn’t particularly beginner-friendly.

All in all, Seeking Alpha allows you to cultivate a unique information ecosystem suited to your particular needs. There is a steep price to pay, but if you’re an experienced investor who can successfully navigate through a ton of high-quality content, Seeking Alpha might just be what you’re looking for.

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4. Morningstar – Best for Funds

Morningstar is a veritable powerhouse when it comes to research. In fact, it wouldn’t be too far off to call the company the premier provided of financial research and information on the stock market. However, it’s more on the do-it-yourself side of things – this service is catered to investors who already have some feathers in their cap.

Morningstar’s claim to fame comes from its ubiquitous and ever-dependable Morningstar ratings, which evaluate funds on the basis of risk-adjusted returns compared between similar funds when looking at past performance. That’s a great first step in researching funds, and it’s available for free – but Morningstar goes far above and beyond its most recognizable contribution.

It comes as no surprise that Morningstar is in on the newsletter game. And this isn’t an afterthought – Morningstar publishes a staggering 11 separate newsletters, 7 of which are free. The free newsletters deal with various topics, such as big moves in the market, in-depth analysis, the fund industry, financial advice, and the week’s biggest news – with one of the 7 being tailored to financial advisors.

So, what about premium content? There are two areas to cover here – Morningstar Premium and Morningstar Investment Newsletters. Morningstar Premium comes in at $199 per year (although it does have a 14-day free trial) and gives clients access to a variety of services, such as stock and fund recommendations, as well as market analysis and commentary and an expanded, forward-looking system of ratings.

The research that you gain access to by subscribing to Morningstar Premium is detailed, thorough, and extensive – but there’s no hand-holding. A vast majority of the resources that Morningstar gives you access to require a bit of legwork on your part.

And as for the Morningstar Investment Newsletters, there are currently 4 of them: Stockinvestor, Fundinvestor, Dividendinvestor, and ETFinvestor. The first two cost $145 annually if you opt for the digital subscription and $165 if you opt for the print edition (which includes digital access). The latter two are a tad more expensive, coming in at $199 per year for the digital option, and $219 per year for the print option.

Let’s get the most important issue out of the way – these are expensive newsletters. That issue becomes even more compounded if you intend of investing in more than one asset class – which you should do, as that’s the essential foundation of proper diversification. On top of that, Stockinvestor and Dividendinvestor occupy much of the same space – dividend investing is usually done via stocks.

Still, if you’re in a position to foot the bill, you’ll see that the newsletters are worth the price. Each comes with well-produced commentary on current events, in-depth editorials on specific businesses, dedicated watchlists, and email alerts.

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5. Kiplinger – Best Variety of Topics

Founded way back in 1920, Kiplinger occupies a venerable place in the U.S. finance space – and its conservative, no-nonsense advice has stood the test of time. It offers both free and premium newsletters – so let’s see if they merit your consideration.

Although Kiplinger is an old company and tends to focus on tried-and-true methods when it comes to investing and accruing wealth, don’t be fooled – they have kept up with the times. The magazine offers 7 investment newsletters – and all of them are free.

And those 7 investment newsletters cover quite a wide array of topics. Kiplinger Today is the catch-all, general news newsletter, and is delivered daily. Closing Bell is delivered after the markets close, and serves to keep you up to date on what the next trading day will look like.

Investing Weekly looks at promising companies and industries to invest in, as well as the ones you should avoid, while Building Wealth focuses on sharing the newest best practices and tactics recommended by financial professionals.

Tax Tips is delivered weekly (from December to April) and monthly (from May to November), and gives readers various insights on how to trim their federal and state tax bills. Retirement Tips, on the other hand, is delivered twice a week, while A Step Ahead, the newsletter focused on the challenges and disruptions facing both specific industries and the market at large is delivered three times a week.

Obviously, there’s a wealth of content here – and it’s very accessible. You don’t have to subscribe to all of these – and it’s highly unlikely that all of these topics will be relevant to you. However, Kiplinger’s content is sound, well-produced, and well-researched – if your interests intersect with one of their newsletters, you’ll be getting good advice.

If you’re interested in getting more content (or simply a bit more old-fashioned), Kiplinger also publishes a monthly magazine – Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. It costs $29,95 per year for a one-year subscription or $39,90 for a two-year subscription and is available both in print and digital.

The magazine covers a variety of topics – but as you might have guessed, not all of them have to do with investing. Sure, the magazine does delve into those waters – but it also regularly covers things such as budgeting, retirement planning, strategies for saving money, as well as other facets of managing money.

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6. Zacks – Great Stock Research

Founded way back in 1978, Zack’s is an investment research company that has managed to cultivate a vibrant community of almost 900,000 subscribers. The company offers a variety of tools, and most of that toolkit is geared toward long-term, buy-and-hold investing.

Before we move on to the rest of the benefits and services that clients of Zacks can expect, let’s deal with the meat of the matter – newsletters. Zacks has two “pure” newsletters – Profit from the Pros and Zacks Fund newsletter. Both of these newsletters are absolutely free.

Profit from the Pros is published each weekday in the morning. It gives a comprehensive yet concise overview of the markets and includes links to Zack’s Bull Stock of the Day, ETF, fund, and stock recommendations. 

Zacks’ Fund Newsletter is published once a week and works much the same way. It offers a summary of the mutual fund and exchange-traded fund markets, a spotlight of the best-performing funds of the past week, as well as links to various articles published by Zacks.

However, Zacks’ also offers a host of other benefits if you choose to opt for one of the paid membership options. There are three of them – Zacks Premium, Zacks Investor Collection, and Zacks Ultimate. They cost $249, $495, and $2,995 per year, respectfully. The first tier comes with a free one-month trial period, while the other two can be tested for a month for only $1.

Zacks’ premium gives you access to the entirety of the company’s equity research, as well as a focus list of 50 stocks with good long-term prospects, powerful and intuitive screening tools, a portfolio tracker, as well as industry ranks lists and a list of 5% of stocks that experienced the largest price moves.

However, Zacks is far and away most famous for its proprietary system of evaluating stocks – Zacks rank. The company continuously monitors around 10,000 stocks, factoring in both fundamental and technical analysis, and ranks stocks on a scale of 1 to 5 – with 1 indicating a strong buy, and 5 indicating a strong sell.

Both of the more expensive subscription options are a bit more “niche”, let’s say. They’re quite expensive, for starters, and most investors will have their needs met with the premium subscription. The Investor Collection includes exclusive lists of well-performing stocks with a share price under $10, a list dedicated to value investing, hand-selected stock picks, and a list of good income investments.

Zack’s Ultimate includes everything The Investor Collection does, as well as recommendations for high-frequency trading, investing in options, short selling, and a variety of other, niche strategies such as news trading and investing in commodities. On top of that, this tier of subscription gives you access to lists of innovative companies in sectors and industries with high growth potential, such as healthcare, technology, and blockchain.

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What is an Investment Newsletter? 📙

Newsletters are printed or digital content that a business sends to clients, subscribers, or prospective clients, and which cover a certain topic. Investment newsletters, obviously, deal with investing.

However, there’s actually a lot of variety inside that category. Some newsletters cover major economic events, others track market movers, some look at specific sectors or industries, while others recommend which stocks you should buy.

In truth, there are too many investment newsletters out there to count. If you can think of a topic, it most likely has a newsletter. Interested in investing in ETFs? Morningstar has got you covered. Want to keep up with the burgeoning cryptocurrency market? Coindesk has a selection of newsletters for you.

Obviously, we all have limited time and limited attention spans. You shouldn’t subscribe to a dozen newsletters, as the information you receive should still be manageable (and you have to process it). We’d wager that anything between 1 and 6 subscriptions will work best for most people.

We’ll cover what makes a good investment newsletter in the next part of the guide. But first and foremost, take the time out to figure out what you’d like to focus on. Sure, a general newsletter that covers the day’s big events is a must – but you can get a lot more use out of newsletters if you cultivate a system where you’re focused on a small number of topics.

What Makes a Good Investment Newsletter?

We’ve covered our five top picks when it comes to newsletters, and we’d like to believe we’ve represented all of them fairly and gone over the most important points. However, we can’t cover absolutely everything – this guide isn’t meant to be an in-depth review of these services.

You can (and absolutely should) consider everything though – so how do we solve this conundrum? You should consider all the available information, but we can’t cram it all into one guide.

It’s actually rather simple – we’re going to go over what makes a good investment newsletter. Once you have that “blueprint”, you can compare and contrast competing services, see how they stack up against one another, and generally have a framework on how to evaluate newsletters.

Cost 💸

First and foremost out of all factors, cost or price is an element whose importance cannot be overstated. Price affects accessibility, seeing as how an investment newsletter that is unaffordable to you is completely out of reach.

But it doesn’t stop there. Every single dollar that you spend on an investment newsletter is a dollar that could have been invested. In essence, the value that you gain from subscribing to a newsletter has to not only recoup the cost, but also net you profit that you otherwise wouldn’t have attained. 🧐

Of course, both of these points are, if not completely moot, then certainly a bit less important when we’re talking about a free newsletter. However, if you’re tempted to go out and subscribe to a ton of free newsletters, we only have one simple word of advice – don’t. 

Sure, subscribing to a ton of free newsletters requires zero investment, and the “potential” upside is there, sure. But doing that will simply leave you swamped – a veritable information overload is bound to occur, and then, the dreaded “analysis paralysis” sits in. 📫

This is completely contrary to the point of an investment newsletter – which is to digest, sort, and highlight important information regarding the market into a form that is easily understandable, orderly, and above all, actionable.

Education 👨‍🏫

Even though that might not be the primary idea behind investment newsletters, each one of them also provides some educational value. Having a clean, easy-to-understand overview of the market allows you to organically get a sense of how things relate to one another. By subscribing to a newsletter, you’ll also broaden your horizons as an investor – you’re bound to cross paths with plenty of companies, cryptocurrencies, trends, and ideas on the pages of the newsletter that you wouldn’t have otherwise come across.

Another point to consider is that plenty of investment newsletters come bundled with or in the form of a stock-picking service. Stock picking services are their own ball game – but seeing as how the two often come together, they’re also a factor to consider when talking about education and newsletters.

Why? Because these services provide readers with the methodology and rationale that dedicated teams of in-house researchers and analysts used to select the stock picks. Taking a look at how the sausage is made will rub off on you – and there are some mighty fine sausagemakers in the world of finance.

Accessibility 👨‍💻

Accessibility depends on a couple of factors. We’ve already mentioned price, which can be a significant barrier to entry, but accessibility also encompasses things such as how readable, organized, and frequent the newsletter is – and in what way it is delivered.

Certain newsletters have print editions – and while it is nice to have something that you can hold in your hands, it’s rather antiquated and impractical in today’s day and age. A vast majority of newsletters are fully digital – and most of them are delivered via e-mail or by logging into a website.

This is largely a matter of personal preference – although we’d give a slight edge to e-mails, seeing as how they are automatically delivered on a daily or weekly basis.

Track Record / Transparency 📜

Investment newsletters cover important topics. You don’t want to get the wrong lay of the land – that can easily lead to bad investments, poor judgment calls and decisions, as well as losing trades. If a newsletter also recommends stocks that you should buy, the stakes are even higher.

Trust is paramount. You need a reliable source of information that you can rely on. In order to establish if a newsletter is trustworthy, take note of how transparent it is. What do we mean by this? Figure out who owns the newsletter – whether or not it contains clear disclosures if it was involved in any scandals, and if it offers stock picks, take note of the track record and performance of those recommendations.

Good, legitimate newsletters won’t shy away from these things. On the contrary, by being forward and dealing with these topics head-on, a newsletter can cultivate the very trust that is key to its success. A solid track record, a well-managed team of researchers, and transparency go a long way in making a newsletter appealing.

How to Choose an Investment Newsletter 👷‍♂️

The first that you have to do in order to find the proper newsletters for your needs is to set your priorities in order. Subscribing to a good, catch-all newsletter that covers the most important topics of the day is a no-brainer – but where do you go from there?

Start with what you already know. Chances are, the strategy that you use to invest your money has a number of good newsletters that cover it. If you’re into tech stocks, find a newsletter that deals with that topic – if you’re into dividend investing, something like Morningstar’s dividend newsletter will be right up your alley. 📝

Next, consider if you already want to branch out into a new area. Perhaps you’re looking to get into ETFs, index funds, or cryptocurrencies. If you already have some expertise in the area (and even if you don’t), a newsletter that deals with the topic will make the “onboarding” process much easier.

A lot of newsletters come with stock picking services. If you find a good, reputable newsletter with such a service, you can vastly increase your returns – but keep in mind that these subscriptions do cost a fair bit, so they might not be the best choice for investors with small accounts. 💰

When it comes to newsletters that give investment advice, you can look at it one of two ways – either by the type of security that is invested in or traded, or by strategy. For example, The Motley Fool’s newsletters focus on growth stocks, while Morningstar has dedicated newsletters that cover ETFs, stocks, and dividends.

If all goes well, you can broaden your horizons and add more topics to your daily reading, or go in-depth and specialize even further. But for starters, slow and steady wins the race – subscribe to a couple of newsletters, get into the habit of reading them – and then see if you need to go beyond.

How to Boost Your Investment Newsletter 🌟

As we’ve mentioned, investment newsletters fill a variety of niches and often come bundled with other products or services. Although these additions aren’t the main focus of a newsletter (or this guide), they do come in handy and can provide extra value. Here’s what those additions are, and what to look out for. 🔍

The most straightforward and significant of these is a stock picking service. Newsletters generally fall into one of two categories -wide, catch-all newsletters that serve to keep you informed, and specialized, one-topic newsletters that do deep dives on specific topics.

When a newsletter is focused on a specific area of the market, it usually comes bundled with a stock picking service. Although stock picking services usually have a separate (and often expensive) subscription, a quality service can easily recoup that initial investment.

When it comes to stock picking services, the most important areas to look at are reliability and track record, the frequency and avenue of alerts, as well as the strategy or investment method they use. A good stock picking service can help you improve your portfolio (for example, with a selection of curated growth stocks), or it can help you diversify (for example, branching out into value stocks). 🗃

Certain newsletters also come with alert services, which send out alerts to customers when stocks experience large price movements, or simply trigger some pre-set parameters. Alert services are a particularly good fit for short-term trading strategies, such as day trading, swing trading, or news trading. Alert services also often come with stock screeners and other valuable stock analysis software, which makes the process of researching stocks much easier.

The Pros and Cons of Investment Newsletters ⚖

The most important advantage that investment newsletters afford you is an easy way to stay informed – without the huge time investment that usually goes into that. Sure, you can stay up-to-date without a newsletter – but do you really want to spend multiple hours each day going over various sources of information and media?

That approach isn’t just inefficient and boring – it’s also unworkable for a wide majority of retail investors. We know who our audience is – chances are, you are a young, educated, employed professional. You have a decent knowledge base when it comes to investing and the stock market, but investing isn’t your full-time job. ⏲

Simply put, juggling a regular, 9-5 job with investing isn’t easy as is – and it’s way harder if you don’t make things easier for yourself wherever you can. On top of simply being efficient, investment newsletters are also a great avenue for education, and can also serve as a good source of investing and trading ideas.

As far as cons go, the first and most notable one is the lack of exclusivity. While it’s great that newsletters are so readily available, in practice this means that the information contained in them cannot give you an edge. Once a newsletter is published, the market at large can react to that information – and any large price movements have most likely already occurred. 📊

This isn’t to say that following the recommendations of a newsletter cannot net you profits – it most certainly can, but making the same moves ahead of time, on your own, and based on your own research would certainly net better returns.

What to Look Out For with Investment Newsletters 🕵️‍♂️

It’s an unfortunate but inescapable fact that the world of finance is rife with subpar services, brokerages, scams, and bad content – on absolutely all levels. Investment newsletters are no exception.

We’ve already covered what makes a good investment newsletter – but the question of what makes a bad one is equally as important. There are a couple of telltale signs though, certain red flags that can alert you to the fact that a service is either of poor quality or simply fraudulent. 🚩

If the newsletter is the product of a wider organization, you can always look it up via SEC and FINRA resources. Both of these regulatory bodies devote significant time and money on combatting fraud – and if the product or organization you look up has faced regulatory scrutiny, it’s best to move on.

One of the most obvious red flags with investment newsletters is aggressive upselling. If a service is constantly carpet-bombing you with advertisements and trying to get you to buy more and spend more money, it’s probably either a shoddy service or a scam. This is, thankfully, easy to spot – but it isn’t always a guarantee that a service is bad (we’re looking at you, Motley Fool).

Investment newsletters that focus on penny stocks and stocks with low trading volume are fertile ground for the infamous pump and dump scheme. In general, you should stay away from thinly traded stocks – doubly so if they are recommended by a newsletter. 🪙

Fraudulent and low-quality newsletters tend to guarantee high returns, often claim inside info, and quite usually pressure prospective customers to buy now, offering fake “limited time” deals. On top of these signs, if a newsletter doesn’t have clear and transparent disclosures, doesn’t back up its information in any way, and doesn’t publish the research and rationale behind their suggestions, it’s almost certainly a scam.

Are Investment Newsletters Actually Worth It? 🤔

This is a tough one. Obviously, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer here. Investment newsletters are a time-tested, dependable method of staying informed about the goings-on of the market. The idea is a good one – that isn’t even up for debate. The execution of that idea, however, is – but that’s something that can only be determined on a case-by-case basis.

We’re firmly rooted in the belief that there’s (at least one) newsletter out there for anyone. In other words, there’s bound to be a newsletter or two out there that meets your needs and criteria just fine.

Not every newsletter will be a good fit for everyone. But if you keep in mind the criteria we’ve laid out for you in terms of price, accessibility, educational materials, and track record, then you’ll be able to recognize a newsletter that will be worth it to you once you see it.

Conclusion 🏁

Thanks for sticking with us until the end. It’s a bit weird, writing about writing (in this case, newsletters), but this is an important topic. Sure, social media feeds, websites like ours, and the media all play varying roles in keeping you informed – but newsletters are made for that one sole purpose.

Newsletters are a great way to keep your finger on the market’s pulse, broaden your horizons, and get acquainted with investment culture. Simply put, what’s not to like?