Alpha Picks Review – Stock Picks from Seeking Alpha

Alpha Picks is a relatively new stock-picking service from the Seeking Alpha investment platform. Alpha Picks offers two new stock recommendations each month, with a focus on selecting companies with high momentum that will outperform the market over a multi-year time frame.

Is Alpha Picks the best stock picking service for your money? Keep reading our Find Alpha Alpha Picks review to find out.

Pricing options for Alpha Picks

Alpha Picks costs $499 per year. There is no trial period or money-back guarantee.

How do alpha picks work?

Alpha Picks recommends two new “Strong Buy” stock picks each month, which you can then choose to invest in or not. All picks are long-term recommendations designed to be kept for at least one year and much longer for successful picks.

Alpha Picks only recommends US stocks with a market capitalization of at least $500 million. All selections are made by human analysts, not an algorithm, and are based on a variety of factors including:

• Profitability
• Earnings growth
• Price momentum
• Wall Street analyst price targets
• Company basics
• Evaluation compared to peers

In general, the service aims to find promising stocks in sectors that are experiencing strong growth. It does not focus on a single sector but rotates between sectors depending on which parts of the market are seeing the biggest gains.

Each Alpha Picks stock is accompanied by a short research report explaining the rationale behind the selection. It's relatively easy to understand the research reports and dive into what the company is doing, why the Alpha Picks team believes it will outperform the market, and any potential risks to watch for. Much of the research comes from Seeking Alpha's own tools, so the metrics discussed will be very familiar if you already use Seeking Alpha Premium.

Alpha Picks sells stocks from the portfolio when they lag fundamentals, valuation, or price momentum, or when they are rated “hold” for 6 consecutive months. This flexible, analysis-based approach to selling means that Alpha Picks does not typically incur huge losses on bad picks. The worst-performing stock in the portfolio as of February 2024 was down 31.5%, and the second-worst performing stock was down just 9.3%.

Alpha Picks suggests an allocation to each stock in the portfolio, enabling investors new to the service to purchase the entire portfolio. Alternatively, new users can limit themselves to only purchasing stocks that are currently rated as Strong Buy. As of February 2024, there are 31 stocks in the portfolio, and 13 of them are rated Strong Buy.

Who is behind Alpha's choices?

Alpha Picks is managed by the quantitative analysis team at Seeking Alpha. This team is headed by Stephen Kress, who has more than 30 years of experience in this field. Chris founded Cress Capital Management and previously ran a trading desk at Morgan Stanley.

Alpha Picks' stock picks appear to reflect a similar investment philosophy to the rest of the site. The picks are in line with some of the top-rated stocks based on the quantitative ratings you get through Seeking Alpha Premium. Alpha Picks is a great option for investors who don't want to dig deep on the Seeking Alpjha platform and instead just want to know which stocks to buy/sell and when.

Alpha selects performance

Alpha Picks launched on July 1, 2022. Between then and February 2024, the portfolio returned 99.01% compared to 30.93% for the S&P 500. Five picks returned more than 100%, with the top pick returning just over 700%.

Alpha picks vs stock advisor

Alpha Picks has a lot in common with Motley Fool's Stock Advisor stock recommendations service. Both offer two new stock picks monthly, and both focus on long-term stock picks. Both also provide up-to-date ratings for the stocks in the portfolio so you can decide what to buy if you have extra money to invest.

There are two main differences between the services: price and investment style.

Alpha Picks is available for $499 per year, while Stock Advisor is $199 per year (with discounts regularly available for the first year)

The biggest difference between these two services lies in the strategies they use for recommendation. Alpha Picks focuses more on momentum than growth and aims for a minimum holding period of one year. The Equity Advisor prioritizes growth potential and aims for a minimum term of five years. Although this distinction is not huge, they often recommend different stocks.

With that in mind, Alpha Picks can be a little better for active investors, while Stock Advisor can be a little better for long-term non-interactive investors. It's worth considering using both services to get twice as many picks from two completely different analysis teams.

What type of investor is Alpha Picks best for?

Alpha Picks is best for active investors who want a momentum-focused portfolio that covers a wide range of market sectors. You don't have to do much other than follow buy and sell recommendations, so using this service doesn't take a lot of time or effort.

One thing to note about Alpha Picks is that it does not include access to Seeking Alpha's research tools. To do this, you'll need an additional Seeking Alpha Premium subscription, which costs $239 per year. This isn't necessary, especially if you just want stock recommendations that are ready to buy, but adding Seeking Alpha Premium can help self-directed investors find more stocks like those recommended by Alpha Picks.