WallStreetZen Review – How Effective is This Market Analysis Tool?

About WallStreetZen

WallStreetZen is a stock analysis platform designed for non-professional investors. It uses analyst data and algorithmic scores to quickly surface the best stock ideas and help you understand why individual stock prices are moving.

In our WallStreetZen review, we’ll cover everything you need to know about this platform to decide if it’s right for you.

WallStreet Zen Pricing Options

WallStreetZen offers a free account that includes most of the platform’s research tools.

A Premium account costs $19 per month or $150 per year. This enables you to filter analyst price targets to see targets from top-performing analysts only. It also includes email alerts about your watchlist and one-sentence explanations about why a stock’s price is moving. You can try Premium for 14 days for $1, and it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee after your trial ends.

WallStreetZen Features

Zen Score

The first thing you’ll notice in WallStreetZen is the Zen Score. This is an algorithmically-derived score given to stocks based on five categories: valuation, growth, past performance, financial strength, and dividends (similar to Zacks Rank). Within these categories, points are assigned based on whether a stock passes or fails some of the key tests commonly used by fundamental investors. For example, tests measure whether a company can easily pay its debts, whether it is priced above or below its intrinsic value, and whether profits are increasing year-over-year.

WallStreetZen assigns each stock an overall Zen Score, as well as scores for each of the five measured categories. Helpfully, WallStreetZen also shows the industry average score every time it displays a Zen Score.

Analyst Forecast

WallStreetZen makes it easier to decide whether to buy or sell stocks by offering analyst price targets. While this data is publicly available, WallStreetZen does a few things that stand out.

First, you can see each individual analyst’s target and read their public statement on why they’ve recently upgraded or downgraded a stock. You can also filter analysts by their rating.

Second, WallStreetZen backtests analysts’ historical performance to separate out top performers. Premium subscribers can see forecasts based on only the price targets offered by these analysts to get a more refined estimate of where a stock will be in a year’s time.

While the Analyst tools aren’t as comprehensive as an “analyst-focused” platform like TipRanks, they are much better than comparable analysis in other tools.

Stock Overview

WallStreetZen also provides a wealth of other information about stocks. You can track a stock’s fair value, price-to-earnings ratio, and price-to-book ratio over time. The platform also makes it easy to compare a company’s revenue and earnings growth against industry competitors.

One thing we particularly liked is that WallStreetZen offers business-specific information. For example, for PayPal, the platform charted the number of merchant accounts over time. For Amazon, it charted Prime Day sales over time. That kind of highly specific information isn’t something you’ll typically find in a data aggregation platform, but it makes a huge difference when evaluating a company’s future prospects.

Stock Screener

WallStreetZen’s stock screener is available for free and offers a ton of fundamental and financial filters to help you find stocks worth investing in. You can filter not only by Zen Scores, but also by the individual fundamental tests that go into calculating those scores. All of these tests are explained in the screener, which is helpful for understanding exactly what you’re screening for and why.

Results are displayed in a sortable table to enable you to easily compare key metrics and Zen Scores across stocks. However, there’s no way to easily add multiple stocks from the table to a watchlist or to export the data to Excel (which works great if you use MarketXLS). You also can’t save custom screens, which is somewhat frustrating since that there are more than 100 filters are available in the screener. 

Stock Ideas

WallStreetZen puts its own tools to work to offer lists of stock ideas. Many of these ideas are based on simple screens – for example, there are lists for stocks with low P/E ratios or with high earnings growth. However, the platform also has Premium-only lists that highlight strong buys from top-performing analysts and stocks experiencing bullish insider activity. These lists include detailed analysis of why an analyst is recommending a stock or why an insider’s activity is noteworthy.

Customization and Layout

WallStreetZen lets you create an unlimited number of watchlists. Premium subscribers can sign up for daily email updates that include details about why prices are moving and any new analyst or insider action. Besides watchlists, however, the platform doesn’t offer many options for customization.

WallStreetZen doesn’t offer a mobile app at this time.

WallStreetZen Platform Differentiators

WallStreetZen has a lot of similarities to other stock research platforms that use an algorithmic scoring system to rate stocks, such as Ziggma and Investor’s Business Daily. Part of what makes WallStreetZen unique is that it’s scores are based on many of the key tests that fundamental investors have used for decades. That makes it easier to understand what Zen Scores mean and why they matter. In addition, you can apply those same fundamental tests through WallStreetZen’s stock screener to find stocks that meet your investment criteria.

Another thing that’s unique about WallStreetZen is the quality of data it provides. Instead of simply offering analyst price targets, for example, the platform uses backtesting to highlight recommendations from the top-performing analysts. WallStreetZen also explains why stocks’ prices are moving on any given day and offers information about company-specific growth metrics alongside generalized financial metrics.

What Type of Trader is WallStreetZen Best For?

WallStreetZen is best for medium- and long-term investors who want to quickly find stocks that are set to outperform the market. The platform mainly relies on long-term financial information to calculate Zen Scores, and much of the data provided centers around stocks’ fundamentals rather than technical patterns. 

Pros

• Transparent stock scores based on fundamental tests
• Details about business-specific growth metrics
• Check price targets from top-performing analysts
• Free fundamental stock screener
• Very user-friendly

Cons

• Cannot save custom stock screens
• No mobile app