Zacks Investment Research Review 2023

By: Jeremy Biberdorf Nov 23, 2022
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2.0/5

2.0 rating based on 5 ratings

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In a nutshell: Zacks Investment Research is an online investment research firm that can provide individual investors with both technical analysis and fundamental analysis to help them fill their portfolio with opportunities.

As Zacks stock research provides research only, the service can be used concurrently with any trading platforms the investor sees fit.

The platform uses a unique scoring system created by Len Zacks (the founder of Zacks). Created back in 1978, does this scoring system hold up in the modern world? Find out in this Zacks Investment Research review!

$495 per year (Zacks Investor Collection)
$249 per year (Zacks Premium)$495 per year (Zacks Investor Collection)$2,995 per year (Zack’s Ultimate)

Zacks Investment Research is best for…

Performing research on a range of opportunities using various investment vehicles including individual stocks, mutual funds, and exchange-traded funds. Subscribers can obtain data from Zacks Investment Research datasheets and read advice from articles.

Pros & Cons
Pros
  • Transparent Investment Research
  • Three Membership Levels
  • Multiple Investing Styles
Cons
  • Frequent Buying and Selling
  • No Personalized Investment Advice
  • Price

Compare to Other Investment Platforms

Zacks
2.0 rating based on 5 ratings
2/5
Learn More

Fees$249 per year (Zacks Premium)
$495 per year (Zacks Investor Collection)
$2,995 per year (Zack’s Ultimate)

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

What is Zacks Investment Research?

Founded in 1978, Zacks Investment Research is a financial research firm. It provides subscribers with access to various services including stock research reports, earning estimates, analysis, and a selection of portfolio management tools.

The service is well-known for using a proprietary scoring system created by the founder himself. Ranking stocks on a scale of 1 to 5, the scoring system uses four different factors—agreement, magnitude, upside, and surprise—-when providing a score.

Features

Subscribers to Zacks Investment Research have access to a variety of different features and tools, although their exact access will vary (depending on which plan they’ve subscribed to). Information provided through the company covers stocks, mutual funds, and ETFs.

The most noteworthy points are portfolio management tools (Portfolio Tracker, Zacks Ranks, company news, etc.), industry analysis reports, earnings estimate revisions, and stock research reports.

Zacks provides information for over 10,000 different stocks. However, the company does exclude some stocks with limited market capitalization, making it a poor option for those whose portfolios consist largely of small-cap growth stocks.

Fortunately, Morningstar is an alternative research platform that offers comprehensive coverage for small-cap growth stocks. If you’ll need access to complete data for these types of stocks, we recommend checking out our complete review to learn more about this service!

Pricing & Plans

Zacks offers a few features for free, but you’ll need to subscribe to one of its paid plans if you want access to the stock research tools that could give you a real trading advantage  and raise your annual returns.

Free

A free account on Zacks will allow you to use some of the platform’s more basic features. Free users can read a limited number of free articles, subscribe to the daily newsletter, set up email alerts (with portfolio tracking), as well as enjoy access to both Zack Ranks and Zack Styles Scores.

Paid

Zacks Investment Research has three different main subscription plans: Zacks Premium, Zacks Investor Collection, and Zacks Ultimate.

  • Zacks Premium costs $249/year, placing it about $50 more than a subscription to Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor. Premium gives you access to screeners, stock recommendations, Zacks #1 Rank List, and a few other features. However, the performance of Zack’s recommendations don’t perform nearly as well as Stock Advisors, which has achieved an average return—across all recommendations—of 403%. You can sign up for Stock Advisor here if you’re after higher average returns!
  • Zacks Investor Collection” costs $495 per year and unlocks seven additional features including “Stocks Under $10”, “ETF Investor”, and “Zacks Top 10 Stocks”.
  • Zacks Ultimate is Zacks top-tier plan. It costs $2,995 per year and gives you complete access to every portfolio recommendation service including “Black Box Trader” and “Blockchain Innovators”.

Limitations

Although Zacks Investment Research does provide many different portfolio recommendation services and extensive tools that the active trader can easily take advantage of, one thing it doesn’t offer is personalized recommendations.

Truthfully, not every investor will need these, but those who would like personalized recommendations will have to look somewhere else. We recommend Simply Wall St, a service which also provides research reports, performance data, and company reports, as well as personalized portfolio recommendations.

You can learn more by clicking here!

Is Zacks Investment Research Right for You?

As you’ve probably realized from reading this Zacks Investment Research review, the service is far from our #1 service. That’s not to say the platform is bad: it provides relatively in-depth research and has a lot of tools that investors can utilize to succeed.

However, the high prices and lack of personalized portfolio recommendations—combined with the fact that many of the same features can be accessed elsewhere for far less—keep us from being able to confidently recommend Zacks Investment Research to our readers.

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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.