Trade Ideas is one of the most powerful stock screeners available for day and swing traders. However, it’s very expensive and has a steep learning curve, so it’s not the best choice for every trader.
Thankfully, there are other stock screening tools that offer nearly as much customizability at lower prices. Here are five of our favorite Trade Ideas alternatives to try today:
- Best Free Stock Scanner – FinViz
- Best for Charting and Basic Screens – TradingView
- Best for Advanced Screens – Scanz
- Best for Swing Traders – Seeking Alpha
- Best News Screener – Benzinga Pro
Best Trade Ideas Alternatives
We’ll explain what makes each of these alternatives to Trade Ideas stand out and highlight what types of traders they’re best for.
Best Free Stock Scanner – FinViz
FinViz is a free stock scanning tool that can work well for a wide range of traders and active investors. It offers dozens of fundamental and technical screening filters and lets you save up to 50 custom scans at no cost.
Perhaps our favorite thing about FinViz is how it displays scan results. You get a data table with preset views like “Valuation,” “Performance,” and “Technical,” allowing you to sort through scan results according to what matters for your strategy. In addition, you can view results as miniature candlestick charts to quickly spot technical setups.
FinViz also offers bubble charts, which can be very useful for active investors. These let you visualize differences among stocks based on up to three parameters. It’s a great way to find outperforming stocks in an industry or compare top gainers based on technical indicators.
One minor drawback to note about FinViz is that you cannot add custom filters or even enter custom values for most filters. Instead, the platform offers drop-down menus with a selection of preset values for each filter. There are enough options that this won’t be an issue for most traders, but it does limit the scanner’s flexibility.
Key Features
- Combines fundamental and technical filters
- Visualize results in a data table or as mini charts
- Bubble plots to directly compare stocks
- Includes market news feed
Pricing: Free
Special Offer
Sign Up for a FREE FinViz Account
Best for Charting and Basic Screens – TradingView
TradingView has earned a reputation as one of the best charting platforms on the market. Its charts offer just as much flexibility as Trade Ideas charts, but the user interface is a lot easier to navigate. TradingView also enables you to apply indicators on indicators, making it possible to create some unique chart visualizations.
Another benefit to TradingView is that it has an enormous community, and anyone can share the custom indicators they create. So, you get access to thousands of user-created chart templates and screening strategies. The library can be a bit overwhelming, but you can save a lot of time by borrowing custom indicators instead of coding your own.
TradingView’s screening tools are relatively basic compared to Trade Ideas. There’s a decent selection of fundamental and technical filters, but the options aren’t extensive. You can view scan results in a table or as miniature charts, but TradingView doesn’t have some more advanced visualizations like stock racing.
Key Features
- User-friendly charting and scanning
- Real-time technical alerts
- Supports custom indicators
- Community-generated strategies
Pricing: From $12.95 per month
Special Offer
Create a FREE Account with TradingView
Best for Advanced Screens – Scanz
Scanz is a powerful stock screening tool built with day and swing traders in mind. It’s a great alternative to Trade Ideas if you want something just as flexible and with added features like news scanning. It’s expensive, though, so don’t expect to save money compared to Trade Ideas.
Scanz offers a few different ways to monitor the market. The Pro Scanner is most similar to Trade Ideas in that it enables you to create a custom scan using dozens of technical indicators. Another tool is the Breakout Scanner, a real-time feed of stocks hitting new highs or lows or trading with above-average volume. It’s a great module for momentum traders looking for potential setups.
Scanz comes with excellent charts and Level 2 data. It also supports custom alerts, including for news and SEC filings around stocks you’re watching.
Notably, Scanz doesn’t support custom indicators or strategy backtesting. So, it’s not a perfect substitute for Trade Ideas if you want to develop a unique trading strategy based on non-standard indicators.
Key Features
- Multiple scanning tools including Pro Scanner, Easy Scanner, and Breakout Scanner
- Includes news and SEC filing scans
- Supports custom alerts
- Includes charts with Level 2 data
Pricing: $169 per month
Best for Swing Traders – Seeking Alpha
Seeking Alpha is a stock research platform that includes tools for stock screening and idea generation. It’s ideal for swing traders and active investors looking for their next opportunity, but isn’t as suitable as Trade Ideas for day traders.
With Seeking Alpha, you can build custom stock screens using a wide range of valuation and fundamental parameters. Notably, the screener doesn’t offer much in the way of technical filters—you can screen based on RSI and price relative to moving average, but that’s about it. Seeking Alpha’s charts are also pretty basic. Overall, this platform is much more focused on valuation and growth potential than Trade Ideas.
Helpfully, Seeking Alpha offers several ratings-based filters, including filters based on how Wall Street analysts, Seeking Alpha contributors, and a quantitative algorithm grade a stock. Those same ratings are used to build a top stocks list, which contains around 40 ideas for stocks worth buying. This is a nice way to find momentum trading opportunities.
We recommend combining Seeking Alpha with a more technical-focused platform like TradingView. That way, you can find and research ideas in Seeking Alpha, then plot out your trades and find entry opportunities in TradingView.
Key Features
- In-depth value and growth-focused stock research
- Stock scanner with dozens of valuation filters
- Top stocks list based on multiple ratings
- Stock comparison tool to assess financials of similar companies
Pricing: $239 per year
Special Offer
Try Seeking Alpha Premium FREE for 7 Days
Best News Screener – Benzinga Pro
Benzinga Pro is an outstanding market news scanner built with day traders in mind. The platform prides itself on consistently being the first trading platform to deliver breaking news headlines.
With Benzinga Pro, you get a real-time news feed that shows you everything happening in the market. You can customize the feed to monitor certain tickers or industries, plus set up alerts for stocks you’re watching. Color-coded sentiment indicators make it easy to know whether a headline will be positive or negative for a stock.
Benzinga Pro also offers audio squawk. When enabled, this will read headlines out loud so that you don’t have to turn your attention away from your trading platform.
Benzinga Pro has a basic stock scanner and charts, enabling you to use the platform to find opportunities beyond what’s in the headlines. In addition, it includes a tool similar to Scanz’ Breakout Scanner that shows stocks experiencing price spikes or unusual options activity. This is great for finding trading opportunities, although you’ll want a dedicated charting and trading platform to analyze technical setups.
Key Features
- Real-time news scanner with breaking headlines
- Unlimited alerts on watchlist stocks
- Audio squawk enables you to listen to headlines
- Includes real-time scanner for breakouts and options activity
Pricing: From $30.58 per month
Special Offer
Try Benzinga Pro FREE for 14 Days
What to Look for in Trade Ideas Alternatives
When comparing Trade Ideas alternatives, it’s important to think about what type of trading strategy you need your scanner to accommodate. Trade Ideas is a heavily technical-focused scanner that caters to day and swing traders. If that’s your trading style, it’s important to choose a scanner that supports a wide range of technical filters, real-time data, and custom strategies.
On the other hand, if you’re a swing trader or active investor, you may be better served by a screening software that incorporates valuation and fundamental filters. Integrated charting tools are helpful because they enable you to plan out trades after finding opportunities.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Trade Ideas is more than just a stock scanner. It also offers tools for strategy backtesting, charting, and trading. If you need these features, consider using both a dedicated stock screening tool and an all-in-one trading platform like TradingView, Thinkorswim, or MetaTrader.
FAQs
What is the best Trade Ideas alternative for intraday traders?
The best Trade Ideas alternative for intraday traders is Scanz, which offers real-time scanning based on custom strategies. Scanz also includes charts with Level 2 data, customizable alerts, and a Breakout Scanner to help you find trading opportunities throughout the day.
What is the best Trade Ideas alternative for backtesting?
Platforms like TradingView, Thinkorswim, and TrendSpider offer backtesting tools for traders similar to those in Trade Ideas. You can build and test custom strategies to see how they would have performed under past market conditions.
Do traders need a real-time stock scanner?
A real-time stock scanner is an essential tool for intraday trading, and most swing traders would consider it a must-have tool as well. That’s because scanners enable you to find opportunities that meet your trading strategy before the window to enter a trade has passed.
What are the shortcomings of free scanners?
While free scanners can be useful, they often don’t provide real-time data and so are not useful for intraday trading. In addition, free scanners may not support custom indicators or have a limited selection of filters, making it difficult to find opportunities for a custom trading strategy.
What features does Trade Ideas have that other scanners do not?
Trade Ideas is one of the only stock scanners that incorporates AI to backtest and evaluate strategies, then recommend stocks to watch during the next trading day. In addition, Trade Ideas’ backtesting module offers strategy optimization tools, while backtesting tools from many competing platforms do not.
Conclusion: Trade Ideas Alternatives
Trade Ideas is a popular stock scanner for traders, but its cost and learning curve mean that it’s not the best choice for everyone. FinViz is a good free alternative, while TradingView and Scanz offer the most similar capabilities to Trade Ideas. Seeking Alpha is worth considering for swing traders and Benzinga Pro is a good option for day traders who want real-time market news.
