(2/2) 100+ quality investment & business analysis resources

Top-notch free & paid resources for professionals & retail investors alike.

Fellow exponents,

In part one of this two-part series, we covered sources for:

I. Macro data
II. Trends, industry reports and databases
III. Institution and insider transaction data

Let’s power on,

Active Alpha Research

IV. Stock screeners and backtesters

Usage. Useful for value discovery or to backtest ideas. Many of the platforms below have other services, but we focus on their screening and backtesting capabilities here.

Limitations. Past performance ≠ future results - though all forms of investing not reliant on dart-throwing monkeys are predicated on historic patterns continuing or recurring in the future, anyone can be a 20 / 20 genius in hindsight.

1. Finviz: offers an excellent range of indicators, though equities are restricted to US exchanges. The paid version has backtesting capabilities ($25 / month).

2. Tradingview: covers global markets (though market classifications can be a bit funky). Good range of available screening indicators.

3. 💰💰GuruFocus: provides a feature-rich screener and backtester. Company profiles, institutional transactions, etc. ($300-500 / per market / per year)

4. 💰ChartMill: covers Western markets, with broad range of indicators ($300 /year)

5. Portfolio Visualizer: offers GUI-based backtesting platform for US stocks and ETFs. Historical asset class performance great for macros. Very handy.

6. MarketWatch: provides a Swiss Army knife of limited stock screeners, but also lists of short interests, IPO, earnings & economic calendars, etc.

7. QuantConnect: offers a backtesting platform for coders, as well as market data. Cloud access down to minute-level data is available for free.

8. 💰Stock Rover: provides global market coverage (patchy at times) & basic testing. Bare-basics free plan available upon signup, paid plans start at $8 / month.

9. Morningstar: provides a screener on its Canadian site covering multiple markets. Limited range of indicators, but can also be used for mutual funds & ETFs.

10. Other: Moomoo covers US, HK & CN with limited indicators. Yahoo Finance also has a very basic screener albeit covering many geographies.

V. Fundamental and market data providers

Usage. Apart from the usual suspects - the Wharton School provides a good list of premium providers. If you are lucky enough to be in school, see what subs you have.

Limitations. Shorter-term traders would also need real-time market data. Again, it is worth keeping in mind that historic performances do not necessarily guarantee future success. Higher frequency means up to intraday trading, not Optiver / Flash Boys -style trading.

1. Yahoo Finance: provides market data on a wide range of markets (full list of available symbols here). Extensive daily market data available, with up to 7 days of minute-level data supported by both GUI and API.

2. 💰💰Quandl - acquired by Nasdaq: offers individual datasets that can be purchased separately for concrete research in a similar manner to Kaggle (coding helpful). Quandl used to have more free offerings before the acquisition. Nasdaq also provides near-real-time quotes essential for higher-frequency traders for securities listed on the exchange.

3. CBOE: provides historical options data reports for download, as well as futures, also supplying free near-real-time (updated every 10 secs) quotes & order book data for securities traded on the exchanges. supplies JPX provides reference data (including futures & options) for Japan, and sells real-time market data. CFFEX provides futures data for China. NSE and BSE for India.

4. Alpaca: offers free tick-level market data, helpful for higher frequency trading (coding needed). Polygon.io also offers comparable data packages, going from free to 💰💰.

5. Financial Modeling Prep: offers fundamental & market data down to the minute level through the rather aptly named FinancialModelingPrepAPI, with limited historical coverage for smaller companies (coding required).

6. Investing.com: provides end-of-data historical data for wide range of instruments and indices around the world.

7. Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE): supplies free near-real-time (updated every 10 secs) quotes & order book data for securities traded on the exchanges.

8. AKShare: features fundamental & market data focused on Chinese securities via API (coding required); limited daily EOD data available for free; more for paid.

9. 💰Tushare: like AKshare (coding required), paid API focused on CN securities.

10. Other: awesome-quant lists resources for the more quantitatively inclined. Limited-time data deals sometimes are mentioned in r/Tickdata & r/algotrading. Estimize provides unusually crowd-sourced company & macro estimates. LSEG provides an extensive data catalogue (quite 💰💰💰).

VI. Non-listed equity & other asset class

Usage. Helpful for macro traders looking to express specific views. Business analysts also need to be aware how share prices may be exposed to raw material & forex risks.

Limitations. Sources are different by geography & asset class - commodities (mentioned in macro section), debt, forex, derivatives and crypto each complex.

1. FINRA: provides US mutual fund analyzer & screener, fixed income statistics. Basic stats on equities / exchange-traded securities, short interest, etc.

2. Exchanges: provides details of how ETFs are managed, e.g., LSE, offers lists of ETF (and ETP), e.g., NYSE or even a comparison tool for HK.

3. VettaFi (etfdb): offers for free a basic screener. etf.com, justETF and the NYSE-recommended ETFCentral are comparable offerings. Again, we have to mention Yahoo Finance here - which covers mutual funds, ETFs, futures, etc.

4. Disruptors: targets in general the mass affluent with alternatives like hedge funds that have a lower minimum investment requirement with their comparison services - like Moonfare. Robo-advisors have also been gaining traction.

5. Others: some overlap e.g., TradingView for live forex. No-nonsense Trader-Trust offers direct download to min-level forex data. Kraken provides free crypto data.

Usage. Can help inform pricing multiples; PE / VC deals offer an alternative view & insights into longer-term trends. However, databases on non-listed companies are usually more relevant for larger institutions. Harvard Business School has a nice comparison.

Limitations. Though PE firms are typically regarded as being among the most sophisticated investors, they pay an additional control premium, and are just as vulnerable to excesses during periods when they have a lot of cash.

Alpha exponent recalls examples of major PEs paying > 25 P / S (not P / E) for companies that were generally not profitable, and recorded only passable growth rates.

1. 💰💰Preqin: gives some free reports, focuses on alternatives (PE / VC, private debt, hedge funds, real estate, infrastructure, commodities) though Alpha Exponent have only used their PE / VC data before (paid access from $5k per year).

2. 💰💰💰Pitchbook covers PE / VC deals data, tend to be later rounds than Preqin.

3. 💰Crunchbase: covers especially startups (starts from $29 / month).

4. 💰💰💰CB Insights: competes directly vs Crunchbase, but also offers family office & capitalist data. Pricing not disclosed.

5. Capital IQ: competes with Bloomberg and targets more the institutions. Refinitiv Eikon said to provide a cheaper option starting from $3,600 / year.

VII. News & analysis providers

Usage. Macro news can help form the basis of forward asset allocation when doing top-down analysis. When doing bottom-up analysis, looking for historical developments and how the market reacted to those is also very useful. Finally, monitoring any holdings, especially for changes in fundamentals is key.

Limitations. Trading on news can be dangerous - sometimes already priced in by market; at times the market will overcorrect (Dornbusch Overshooting in fancy lingo). In the short term, market prices are more affected by expectations than fundamentals.

1. CNBC Business: provides business news - it is difficult to beat free.

2. 💰Barrons: provides business / investing news (~$20 / month).

3. 💰Wall Street Journal: provides cleaned-up financial statements for free. Be careful however - data might be adjusted & not always match annual reports.

4. 💰Financial Times: offers deeper dives. Global coverage with UK / European lean. Its parent Nikkei covers Asia, while the Asahi Shimbun zooms in on Japan.

5. 💰Newsweek: covers global events, and market-moving socio-political news.

6. 💰Huxiu: covers China, differentiated with its deeper studies - similar to FT-style big reads that cover companies but also business-related phenomena.

7. 💰Business Standard: covers India (around $3 / month).

8. Euronews: focuses on Europe, EMEAfinance for EMEA,

9. Media Bias / Fact Check checks political stance & factual accuracy of media outlets for any biases.

10. 💰Other: ValueLine - selection of premium investment surveys & newsletters (also see Substack of course, plenty of other excellent contributors here). The Economist covers more macro and sociopolitical issues. Meanwhile UCLA and UIUC provide lists of African news providers and LatAm news providers.

VIII. Communities

Usage. These can set you with the initial ideas for specific trades or stocks, or the general inspiration or high-level strategy, as well as acting as sounding boards.

Limitations. Doing your own research is preferable - at the very least to understand if the risk profile suits you, and what risks and rewards you might be gaining exposure to.

1. Value Investors Club: made famous by its co-founder Joel Greenblatt; signing up provides access to 45-days’ delayed ideas, contribute to remove delay.

2. Silicon Investor: made a certain Michael Burry (as featured in the Big Short) famous. Leans towards growth investments such as tech / biotech / small caps etc.

3. Bogleheads: leads towards passive investment and asset class allocation.

4. 💰SeekingAlpha: provides investing ideas for multiple asset classes.

5. Reddit: attracts very diverse crowds by subreddit, e.g., ranging from r/Investing, r/ValueInvesting, r/economy, r/SecurityAnalysis, r/Dividends r/options to r/Cryptocurrency, r/PennyStocks, r/DayTrading & r/WallStreetBets.

6. Motley Fool: has different various depending on geography, e.g., for the US, UK and Canada, but only the US forum remains highly active.

7. Corner of Berkshire & Fairfax: attracts value investors, focused on North America.

8. Microcapclub: specializes in microcaps in Anglophone markets. Free for contributors and $697 / year otherwise.

9. Value Buddies: attracts folks interested in the Singapore, HK, and US markets.

10. Other: Valuepickr for India - also incorporating views from Indians around the world, Snowball Finance for China, r/AktienAnalyse for European / DACH stocks, European Growth Dividend Investing for Europe, Special Situation Investments. Quantnet for quants.

IX. Fund philosophies and strategies

Usage. For inspiration or insights, nothing quite like reading from the investment greats. Can learn about general principles & high-level strategies.

Limitations. Actual application can be hard because details are not often disclosed. Quant funds are often highly secretive (e.g., RenTech) or are focused on strategies limited to major institutions due to the high entry barriers, such as very high-frequency trading. Factor-based funds are the exception as they can have higher capacities and rely anyway on the specific implementation.

1. Berkshire Hathaway: Buffett’s track record - BRK.A saw 19.8% CAGR in share price from 1965 to 2022 vs just 9.9% for the S&P 500 - speaks for itself.

2. Wesco: Munger - Buffett’s long-time partner chimes in. Munger was the one who shifted Buffett’s mindset to pay more for quality growth.

3. AQR: factor-based investing (value, momentum, etc.) strategies and insights from Cliff Asness - who incidentally was a student of Eugene Fama

4. Oaktree: founded by Howard Marks, Oaktree specialized in distressed debt. Howard Marks has a special style of value-investing - see this memo in 2021.

5. Fundsmith: Terry Smith also a value investor, known as Britain’s Warren Buffett.

6. Universa Investments: portfolio insurance, associated with Taleb - see white papers, and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (there were a lot of research papers unfortunately no longer available or easily accessible on website).

7. Aquamarine Capital: Guy Spiers shares his thoughts & book suggestions.

8. Bridgewater: founded by Ray Dalio, Bridgewater is famous for its risk-parity strategy & its culture (Harvard Business Review case study).

9. Man Group: known for its systematic strategies, as shared here.

10. Brookfield: focused on alternatives - interesting views on general themes & growth trends.

X. Where red flags might be found

First off, be sure to first look at company disclosures, especially adjustments, non-recurring costs, related party transactions, the footnotes to all those, and changes in accounting policies or choice of auditors, management, or board members, etc. Entire books have been written on the subject.

Usage. These sources can be used for checking if the company may be a no-go; e.g., if there are lots of customer complaints.

Limitations. Geo & sector coverage are again limiting. In general, it is harder to do due diligence on B2B firms, since they do not have so many consumer reviews online.

1. TrustRadius: B2B product reviews; Trustpilot more consumer focused.

2. SEC: worthwhile checking first if the information is already available - FOIA logs has information about FOIA requests received; once you do, requests here. For quant or NLP-leaning analysts, the Financial Statement data sets, more extensive Financial Statement and Notes data sets, Division of Economic & Risk Analysis (DERA) data library may also be worthwhile digging into.

3. Stock exchanges: assessments of quality of disclosures from the Shanghai, Shenzhen.

4. Government agencies & watchdogs: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Better Business Bureau for the US, State Attorney General, Companies House, Financial Conduct Authority for the UK.

5. Court decisions: Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER), the FTC legal library, court decisions for China, credit blacklists of corporate entities in China, as well as for individuals.

6. 💰QCC: check for connected entities and natural persons in China. Tianyancha is an alternative.

7. Glassdoor: check for employee reviews (monster and indeed.com are similar websites that may have more information).

8. Bureau of Investigative Journalism: has longer studies that can help generate short ideas.

9. Github or Gitlab: provides a way to check companies’ state of open-source software (for those that use this model).

10. Other: Capterra/G2 for software, Yelp/TripAdvisor for offline (Dianping in China). Amazon / AliExpress / Taobao / Tmall / JD / PDD / Lazada / Shopee / Temu online.

That is a lot to get through, and if you have made it here, congratulations and give yourself a pat on the back!

---

---

Disclaimer: This should not be construed as investment advice. Please do your own research or consult an independent financial advisor. Alpha Exponent is not a licensed investment advisor; any assertions in these articles are the opinions of the contributors.