Black Box Stocks Review – How Does This Trading Platform Rank?

About Black Box Stocks

Black Box Stocks is a real-time algorithmic stock and options trading platform with a variety of social media features. Like a prix fixe meal, convenience is a key aspect of this service as it displays everything on a single screen. Black Box Stocks also does all the legwork required to continuously monitor more than 13,000 stocks and options. Users get actionable stock trade alerts based on high-frequency trading strategies, access to a pre-market and post-market scanner, and built-in options trading software tools.

The simplicity, quality and convenience of this service makes it stand out in an overcrowded field of scanning products.

Read our BlackBoxStocks review to see if this platform will be a good fit for you.

Black Box Stocks Pricing Options

Black Box Stocks has one membership plan that provides full access to the service for $99.97 per month or $959 per year (a savings of $240.64 compared to the monthly rate). This includes data fees and a newsfeed from The Fly-on-the-Wall.

There is no free trial, but hopefully, our Black Box Stocks review answers any questions you may have about the service.

Features Breakdown for Black Box Stocks

BlackBoxStocks offers a range of trading tools for both stocks and options. The tools are designed to help traders find, analyze, and trade the best setups as they unfold. Key features include advanced technical charts, a stock market scanner, an options scanner, trade alerts, and much more. Let’s take a closer look.

Charts

Institutional grade charts are available for every stock that triggers an alert so that users can quickly view the price action behind the alert. Users can add technical studies and choose from candlestick, line or bar charts. The charts are annotated to show where the underlying stock was trading at the time of the initial alert, making it easier to follow along as setups develop. Overall, the charts are nice, and similar to the charts we commended in our recent TrendSpider review.

News Feed

Users can stream a news feed from Fly-on-the-Wall as well as get news for specific symbols that have triggered alerts or been added to your watchlists. The inclusion of The Fly-on-the-Wall news feed is a great value. The Fly is one of my favorite real-time newsfeeds catered to traders. Traders who are used to paying for news services like Benzinga Pro and TradetheNews can save money instantly by taking advantage of the built-in news feed in Black Box Stocks.

Pre & Post-Market Stock Scanner

Black Box Stocks offers scanners for pre-market trading activity and post-market trading activity. These run continuously in real-time, making it easy to spot stocks as soon as they meet the scanner criteria. Stocks also trigger trade alerts and can be found in the alerts log along with their charts. Users can add their favorite indicators to the charts as well to better assess potential trades and setups.

Notably, this isn’t your typical stock screener. It doesn’t offer a ton of customization options or conform to a niche strategy. Rather, it’s specifically designed to generate trading ideas in real-time so you’re ready to go when the financial markets open.

Alerts

Alerts stream all day and are saved to an alerts log. This is a cumulative list of all alerts triggered during the current day. Users can sort alerts by time, volatility, and percent change, and each symbol’s chart, news and social media can be looked up immediately. The Black Box Stocks system is pre-programmed to find stocks and options that are seeing heavy activity, so alerts are a great way to stay close to trading action.

Watchlists

Black Box Stocks lets you create your own custom watchlists in addition to offering a set of built-in watchlists (e.g. Gainers/Decliners for Today/Yesterday for Stocks and Options). The watchlists are useful, but they don’t add much to Black Box Stocks. I’m a big fan of being economical with screen space and use Blackbox solely for current scanning needs and keep my personal watch lists on my trading platform.

Options Trading

Black Box Stocks has some of the best options tools of any platform I’ve tested. Options provide more leverage than stocks, but keep in mind that leverage is a double-edged sword – a small move can wipe out your total investment. Only experienced traders should consider using options, especially if you’re trading directional movements that require paying heavy premiums to get in on the action.

Tools available for options trading in Black Box Stocks include options alerts, options flow, an options heat map, and an options news feed. The options heat map is particularly useful since you can quickly visualize what strike prices are seeing the most trading volume.

We’ve reviewed standalone options trading tools like OptionVue, Optionsonar, and  OptionsPlay, and they can get expensive quickly. For traders who trade both equities and options, it can be difficult to justify paying for a standalone options tool. Black Box Stocks solves this issue by bringing powerful options trading tools into a platform that is suitable for a wide range of traders.

Members Chatroom

The Black Box Stocks chatroom is another of my favorite features of this platform. The chatroom is usually occupied by 100 or more members at any time during the day. The Shot Callers are moderators and experienced traders. Overall, the community of traders is seasoned, and I find profitable ideas in this room daily. I have my favorite traders that I follow throughout the day and that alone is worth the price of membership. It also motivates me to grind it out every day when I see how these top traders are always scanning and reacting.

While this chatroom isn’t as active as a standalone service like Investors Underground or Warrior Trading, it adds a nice social component to the platform. it is even more valuable for traders who aren’t already paying for a chat room subscription service from another company or who want to build their trading skills by learning from more experienced traders.

Audio Chat

The chatroom also has audio functionality which enables members to listen to in the #bbs_chat room. It’s great to listen in on insights from the moderators and some of the most seasoned traders on the site. This frees up screen real estate again form the chatroom and keeps me connected with traders I respect for potential ideas and setups throughout the day.

Compatible Brokers

Blockboxstocks recommends using Think or Swim (TOS), available through Ameritrade, as your trading platform. Blackbox members can get special rates. For now, TOS is just a recommended broker and the platform doesn’t actually plug into TOS for connected trading.

BlackBoxStocks already offers many of the tools you’d expect from a full-service platform. If they added broker integrations and a few other features, I could see this being the sole trading workstation for many traders.

Platform Differentiators

Black Box Stocks offers all the tools you need for trading stocks and options. The fact that you can find pre- and post-market scanners, stock trade alerts, and options trading tools all in a single platform is a big deal. Plus, Black Box Stocks incorporates an active trading chatroom to expose you to ideas from seasoned traders who can help you make the most of the platform.

More broadly, I love the simplicity of Black Box Stocks. Trading platforms these days have gotten so complicated and bundled with so many useless features that end up clogging screen space and resources. Black Box Stocks puts all the data and alerts you need to trade on a single screen, keeping your attention on the actionable setups that you need to worry about. Overall, the platform is easy to navigate and there are tons of great tools for options trading and stock trading.

Is Black Box Stocks a Good Value?

Black Box Stocks is an incredibly good value considering that it includes real-time exchange data fees as well as The Fly-on-the-Wall newsfeed (retails for $35-$65 per month). It’s like getting the actual trading tools that Black Box Stocks offers for free.

While some traders may be hesitant to test the tool at $99.97, it’s definitely worth a shot if you are actively involved in the stock market. BlackBoxStocks can easily replace some of the tools you may already be paying for.

That said, it would be nice if the company offered some type of trial in the future. I believe many traders would become long-term customers if they had the ability to test the tools this platform offers.

What Type of Trader is Black Box Stocks Best For?

This sleek, powerful, and intuitively designed platform accommodates a wide range of stock and options traders, including both beginners and experts. Black Box Stocks is laser-focused on short-term, intraday setups, so it’s best suited for day traders and active swing traders.

Notably, Black Box Stocks offers a trading system more than it offers a fully customizable platform. So it’s ideal for traders who don’t want the complications of creating or configuring scans. Black Box Stocks can also be useful for traders who want to use the chatroom to find money-making ideas and learn from real trading pros.

Pros

• Convenient one-screen layout with all features available at-a-glance
• High-frequency trading strategies integrated in algorithms that do the legwork
• Continuous functionality from pre-market through regular hours and after-hours
• Text and audio member chatroom generates ideas from top traders daily
• Amazing value that includes exchange data fees and The Fly-on-the-Wall newsfeed
• Simple and intuitive design makes it easy to learn platform quickly
• High-quality real-time trade alerts

Cons

• Traders still need a clear strategy to trade the alerts
• Minimal trading education provided for beginners