GuruFocus Review 2023

By: Jeremy Biberdorf Dec 19, 2022
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GuruFocus

4.3/5

4.3 rating based on 5 ratings

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In a nutshell: GuruFocus is a unique platform that believes successful investing starts with emulating the “gurus.”

The service allows you to track the market, the gurus, and even institutional investors.

This GuruFocus review will offer you everything you need to know about this intriguing value investment platform.

FeesService Type Promotion
$0-$5,210 per yearValue investing platform7-day free trial
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • Allows you to track guru investments
  • 30 years of financial data
  • Powerful stock screeners
Cons
  • No monthly billing options
  • Expensive annual plans
  • Regional data packs cost extra

Compare to Other Investment Platforms:

GuruFocus
4.3 rating based on 5 ratings
4.3/5
Learn More

Fees$0-$5,210 per year

Seeking Alpha
4.6 rating based on 5 ratings
4.6/5
Learn More

Fees$29.99/month for premium membership

Morningstar
4.5 rating based on 5 ratings
4.5/5
Learn More

Fees$249/year or $34.95/month for Morningstar Premium

Founded by Charlie Tian in 2004, GuruFocus is one of the many online services that claim to help individual investors maximize their gains. The difference? GuruFocos is primarily intended for value investing (i.e., identifying and purchasing undervalued stocks).

Of course, this “difference” isn’t actually that much different from other services. As with most, GuruFocus restricts all of its best features to those with a premium membership. Since not all investment services can live up to their claims, it’s always best to take a closer look before making a commitment.

From financial news feeds and stock screeners to model portfolio picks and insider information, GuruFocus seems to have a lot of potential. Can the platform live up to our expectations? Let’s find out!

GuruFocus is best for…

Value investors who are in it for the long haul. GuruFocus offers plenty of resources—such as various investing strategies and a comprehensive stock screener—to investors, but none are specifically tailored for short-term investing.

While it’s certainly possible to day or swing trade using GuruFocus, there are alternative platforms that would better support these types of investing strategies.

If you’re the type of investor who’d like to receive investment advice based on historical data from “Gurus,” analyze the stock market using powerful stock screeners, and track your stock picks using interactive charts, then GuruFocus could be a promising platform for you.

Plans & Pricing

Currently, GuruFocus offers three premium plans in addition to a small variety of free features.

Free (Basic Access)

As the name implies, it doesn’t cost anything to make a free Basic Access account on GuruFocus. However, like most stock research platforms, GuruFocus severely limits the features available to non-paid users.

Free users can enjoy limited access to news articles, forums, and stock screeners. They will also be able to view guru holdings, but most of the crucial information that they will need to form a feasible investment strategy won’t be accessible without a paid membership,

Premium Membership

A Premium membership will set you back a minimum of $499 per year (every plan will cost more if you decide to purchase additional regional stock information packs).

For this price, you’ll have instant access to a comprehensive summary of each stock, interactive charts with 30 years of financial data, and the all-in-one stock screener.

You’ll also be able to backtest up to five years prior by using the screener, be able to view the holdings & trade history of 140+ gurus, and export data in Excel format.

Premium Plus Membership

A Premium Plus membership will set you back $1,348 per year. In addition to all the features included with a Premium membership, a Premium Plus subscription also enables you to backtest from 2006, download up to 5,000 rows of data from the Stock Screener, and access the trade history/holdings of over 8,000 institutional investors.

You’ll also have full access to the manual of stocks, be able to view the quarterly holdings of over 15,000 top mutual funds, make 20,000 monthly queries using the API, and have unlimited use of customizable fields.

Professional Membership

Most traders won’t need access to this comprehensive level of data, but if you do, it will set you back a minimum of $2,398 per year. Despite this cost, it’s important to note that you will still need to pay extra for access to data from international markets.

A Professional membership includes all of the benefits offered by a Premium Plus membership. However, it expands the number of monthly API queries you can make to 50,000 per month, grants access to data for delisted stocks, and provides you with a dedicated account manager.

Key Takeaways

Lastly, we’ll take a quick look at the key takeaways of this platform. There are many additional aspects of the service worth considering beyond those listed below, but we’ve collected the ones we’ve deemed most note-worthy for value-driven investors.

Positives

  • Offers interactive charts, stock screeners, and portfolio tracking
  • Allows you to track guru movements throughout the entire stock industry
  • Provides data for multiple financial market regions around the world

Negatives

  • Expensive annual Premium/Premium Plus plans, yet no monthly billing is offered
  • May provide more data than the average investor will be able to take advantage of
  • Real-time news isn’t as in-depth as alternative services

Is GuruFocus Right for You?

There’s no doubt about it: GuruFocus is one of the best stock research platforms for both professional investors and institutional investors whose investment strategy is centered around value investing

While it’s definitely excellent for making long-term informed investment decisions, we’d recommend alternative platforms for day traders and others engaging in short-term trading. The high cost of membership isn’t worthwhile if you’re only utilizing a fraction of the GuruFocus has to offer.

However, if you’d like to start investing using stock ideas and investment ideas based on the strategies, holdings, and history of “Guru” investors, then you won’t find a service superior to GuruFocus!

Try GuruFocus Premium free for 7 days by clicking here!

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Jeremy Biberdorf

About the Author:

Jeremy Biberdorf is the founder of Modest Money. After working many years in the website marketing industry, he decided to take on blogging full time and also get his finances headed in the right direction. Also check out his contributions to Equities.com and Benzinga.