Stock Tracker App Review – Is it Worth Trying?

About Stock Tracker App

The idea of looking at stock charts on a cramped smartphone screen doesn’t seem all that appealing at first. But the Stock Tracker app, available for iOS and Android devices, manages to pull off real-time stock charting with style. The app includes an impressive array of technical overlays and analyses, offers real-time price updates, and allows you to create an unlimited number of portfolios and watchlists. Better yet, Stock Tracker is free to use unless you need text message price alerts or a variety of intraday chart intervals.

Pricing Options

Stock Tracker is free to download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. You can use almost all of the features of the app for free. However, a paid Elite Member account, for $9.99 per month or $89.88 per year, unlocks a few additional restricted features.

First, Elite Members won’t see ads. These aren’t overly obnoxious in the free version, but you will see them throughout the app. Elite Members also have price data routed from a “VIP” server, although it’s rare to find that data is delayed by more than a second or so if you’re using the standard Stock Tracker server.

Second, Elite Members get access to a variety of intraday charts. Free users can see daily one-minute charts, but charting on timescales of 15- or 30-second bars is restricted to paid users only. Elite Members also get access to 15-minute, 30-minute, hourly, and four-hour chart timescales, which free users cannot access.

The third big advantage to an Elite Member account is access to price alerts. Paid users can get up to 50 SMS text alerts per month and an unlimited number of push notification alerts. Free users get just one push notification per month and no text alerts.

Finally, Elite Members have access to technical support from the Stock Tracker team via email. Free users won’t receive any support if something goes wrong with the app.

Stock Tracker App Features

Stock Tracker includes a truly impressive range of features that allow it to be a one-stop-shop for market and stock data.

Portfolios and Watchlists

To start, Stock Tracker allows you to create an unlimited number of portfolios and watchlists. These are extremely helpful since the current price, along with the day’s change, is prominently displayed for each stock in the list. All you have to do is scroll down and you can quickly get a sense of how your portfolio is faring on a given day.

Market-wide Data

Stock Tracker includes a large amount of market-wide data, starting with a watchlist that includes price data for the major US, European, and Asian indices. It also offers price data for all of the most widely traded currency pairs, stock futures, US bonds and treasuries, and commodity futures. The app even includes two calendars – one shows upcoming earnings reports and other national economic releases, while the other shows the dates for US stock IPOs.

As if all that weren’t enough, you can quickly access several pre-made categories to find the biggest daily gainers and losers (US stocks only) and the stocks trading with the highest volume. Similar pre-made watchlists are available on 5-, 15-, 30-, and 60-minute timescales, even for free users.

Technical Charts and Overlays

The feature that most sets Stock Tracker apart from other mobile stock trading apps is its inclusion of highly functional and customizable technical charts. Tap any stock in your watchlist, and the app will bring up a summary screen showing a technical chart, the current price relative to the day and year ranges, and some essential fundamental information about the stock. The chart can display one-minute bars on a daily timescale or daily bars on three-month, six-month, one-year, two-year, and five-year timescales. Elite Members can also look at 15-second and 30-second daily charts, as well as hourly and four-hourly charts.

To customize the data in your technical chart, you need to enter the full-screen charting mode. This is simple to access, as you just need to turn your device sideways or click the full-screen button. You can choose between multiple chart types, including candlestick, bar, line, area, and Renko charts. On top of that, there are about 20 different overlays you can add to your chart. These include all the essential overlays, such as moving averages (simple and exponential), Bollinger bands and Keltner channels, PSAR, pivot points, and VWAP. The timeframe parameter for any of these overlays is fully customizable.

You can also add additional technical analyses in sub-charts that display below the main price chart. For example, volume, MACD, RSI, stochastics, ADX, and around 20 other studies are available within the app. Even the vertical stacking of these charts on your device’s screen can be customized to your liking.

Finally, you can even compare two or more stocks or a stock against a US index on the same chart. 

Stock News, Data, Analysis, and Discussion

Stock Tracker goes one step further by providing all the additional data and analysis around stocks in your watchlists that most traders want. The app aggregates news from popular sources like The Motley Fool, Benzinga, and Marketwatch, although you can’t receive news alerts through the app. It also tracks analyst ratings, if not specific price targets set by analysts. Options traders, too, will be happy with Stock Tracker, since it includes a constantly updating options chain table for every stock.

Interestingly, Stock Tracker also has its own social community. Every stock page has a “Discuss” tab, where you’ll find short notes that other users have written about that stock. Some of these are insightful or spark discussion, but the discussion boards can also seem spammy at times.

Price Alerts

For all intents and purposes, only paid users have access to price alerts through the Stock Tracker app. Unfortunately, even Elite Members will find that they’re limited to 50 SMS alerts per month, which is somewhat disappointing.

Setting alerts is extremely simple, and users have the option of creating alerts based on price change, percent change, or volume in addition to just price. But, price and volume alerts cannot be combined.

Layout and Customization

For how much information Stock Tracker contains, it’s surprisingly easy to navigate. When you open the app, you’re automatically delivered to your primary watchlist – making it easy to see at a glance how your portfolio is doing. The main menu is hidden in a drop-down icon in the upper left-hand part of the screen, and you can easily access any of your other watchlists or market data from there.

The technical charts are also highly customizable and easy to use on a small screen. In addition to being able to add and remove technical overlays at will, you can customize the color scheme for individual overlays or the timeframe of specific analyses. This customization requires you to enter the full-screen chart interface, but that just requires a single tap. Helpfully, the app will remember your overlays and color schemes and apply them across all stocks that you chart in a session. 

The only minor ding to Stock Tracker is that in order to access prices and charts for a stock, you have to first add it to one of your watchlists. There’s no way to simply search for a stock and pull up its chart and data without accessing it from a watchlist.

Compatible Brokerages

Stock Tracker also allows users to trade directly from the app with a number of major brokerages. These include Fidelity, E*Trade, TD, Schwab, Robinhood, TradeStation, and more. 

Stock Tracker App Platform Differentiators

Stock Tracker is one of the most comprehensive mobile apps available for traders. The fact that it’s free to use, with only a few limitations on functionality, is even more impressive given how many features it packs in. There are few competing apps that offer technical charts that are as informative and customizable as those in Stock Tracker, and almost none that combine usable mobile charts with stock news, price alerts, and market-wide data. Overall, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a mobile app for iOS or Android that can meet or exceed Stock Tracker for technical trading on the go, and almost none of the close competitors are free.

What Type of Trader is Stock Tracker Best For?

Stock Tracker includes so many features that it offers a bit of something for everyone. Swing and momentum traders can easily use the app to track price movements throughout the day while keeping an eye on longer-term trends. Day traders can also find a lot to like about Stock Tracker, although it may be more important to upgrade to the paid version to get access to price alerts and 30-second charts. Even long-term investors can use Stock Tracker to simply monitor their portfolios and the market as a whole, since the app does a nice job of presenting price information in a visually compelling way.

Pros

• Almost all of the features are free to use
• Beautiful, functional technical charts built for mobile devices
• Highly customizable chart settings, including overlay parameters and colors
• Active trading with a number of compatible brokerages
• Supports alerts based on price, percent change, and volume

Cons

• Paid users are limited to 50 SMS alerts per month
• Doesn’t offer news alerts
• No customizable stock scanner included