Zacks Review: Len Zacks formed Zacks Investment Research in 1978. Zacks.com is the home of Zacks Investment Research, a website dedicated to investment-related content. Like many of the great investors, Len believed he could find patterns in stock market data. Patterns that would lead to superior profit results. As a result, he developed his own stock picking system, called Zacks Rank.
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Is Zacks Investment Research Any Good? (Review Breakdown)
- Zacks Investment Research Premium service uses the Zacks Rank proprietary system to identify the best-performing stocks to invest in. It’s certainly worth a try when you look at their claim. $10,000 invested 30 years ago with their methodology would have produced over $3 million! Actually, over 10 million dollars if you compounded your profits.
Naturally, those results were generated by using a backtesting procedure. It’s unlikely that anyone would follow the whole system to the letter for 30 years in a row. It’s a key with any kind of investment alerts and recommendation like these. You can’t cherry-pick among their recommendations if you want to achieve the same results.
Zacks Rank uses earnings surprises as a predictive tool. In fact, his research led him to think that “Earnings estimate revisions are the most powerful force impacting stock prices.”
You may have to spend some money first to maximize what Zacks has to offer. Hence this Zacks review. The premium service costs $249 per year. Among other things, it’ll give you access to their special stock screeners.
Zacks Premium offers a 30 day free trial and a 90 day money back guarantee. However, that may not be enough time to learn how or if it works. Check out other Zacks review articles to find out other traders thoughts.
Long Term Investments
The system is for longer-term investments. It’s almost certain that trading all their recommendations will require more than $10,000. For example, Zacks Investment Management is an offshoot of the Zacks Investment Research. Hence this Zacks review.In fact, they work with individual investors, with an emphasis on individuals who don’t have a high net worth.
Yet, the minimum required to open an account is $500,000. I’m just mentioning this to make the point that; a system designed for longer-term investments typically demands a sizable amount of money to invest. On the other hand, day traders who’ve mastered their craft can generate high returns too; with a lot less capital or without the big draw downs often associated with long-term investments.
Research
In this Zacks review we do the research of the company for you. In fact, if you like doing research on your own, their website has a lot to offer. If you are someone with a sizable amount to invest and you don’t have the time or inclination to do all the research, the $299 per month Zacks Ultimate subscription does it for you.
Again, the portfolio generated is grounded in the Zacks Rank system. You can try the Zacks Ultimate subscription for 30 days for the modest sum of $1. However, the examples given on their website show double and triple digits gains over periods ranging from 2 months (with options) to 15 months.
You may not have enough time to evaluate the program. Nonetheless, for $1, it may worth a try. Here’s what you get for $1 during the 30 days trial of Zacks Ultimate:
- “Black Box Trader”
- “Blockchain Innovators”
- “Counterstrike”
- ETF Investor
- Healthcare Innovators
- “Home Run Investor”
- “Income Investor”
- “Insider Trader”
- “Large-Cap Trader”
- “Options Trader”
- “Short List”
- “Stocks Under $10”
- “Surprise Trader”
- “TAZR”
- Technology Innovators
- “Value Investor”
- “Zacks Confidential, Premium and Zacks Top 10 Stocks”
How Much Does Zacks Research Membership Cost? (Pricing Breakdown)
- Zacks Premium membership is $249 for a one year subscription and offers a 30 day trial for free
- Zacks Ultimate membership $299 per month and $2,995 per year
They automatically bill you $299 a month after the first month… Hopefully, you’ll remember that. If you like to do the research yourself while taking into consideration what other experts are doing, the Zacks Investor Collection may be a better service for you.
You can also try it for a dollar, and if you keep the subscription, the cost is $59 per month or $495 a year. You will have a lot to choose from; 8 different private newsletters with buy/sell recommendations, and market commentaries to quench your thirst for information. Just a reminder to check out other Zacks review posts to get other traders thoughts.
What $59 a Month Will Get You
- ETF Investor — Zacks ETF Rank rides emerging trends without buying stocks individually.
- Home Run Investor — Targets under-the-radar companies.
- Zacks Confidential — To see what the best strategists are up to.
- Income Investor — Income through selected high-dividend stocks.
- Zacks Premium — Provides professional-grade tools to individual investors.
- Stocks Under $10 — For growth potential.
- Value Investor — Tracks undervalued companies.
- Zacks Top 10 Stocks — The best 10 stocks to buy and hold throughout the year.
Whatever you do, never forget that regardless if you’re a long-term or short-term investor, just like day and swing traders, following without learning and understanding what you are doing rarely works, if at all.
Regardless if you do follow alerts or not, you must use proper money management techniques to preserve your capital. Without those things, this Zacks review doesn’t mean much.
How Good Are Zacks Ratings?
- According to Zacks.com, Zacks Rank stock-rating system would have produced an average gain of over 25% per year over the last 30 years.
Is Zacks For Day Traders?
Granted, this company is better known for their long-term investors’ breakthrough tools. In fact, popular ones are the consensus earnings per share (EPS) estimates and the Price Response Indicator (shows what a stock price is likely to do after an earnings report). Then there’s the Earnings ESP (not Extra Sensory Perception but close), the Expected Surprise Prediction.
The Earnings ESP sounds like something short-term traders could use as it determines the likelihood of an earnings surprise BEFORE it’s reported. In fact, savvy day traders could use the information to prepare the trade and be ready to execute upon confirmation of the prediction.
Even if you are exclusively a day trader, there are times when you need to do a bit of research on your stocks hot list of the day. As a result, Zacks offers comprehensive data for more than 5,000 companies, including sales and earnings estimates, revisions and past surprises.
Zacks Stock Price and Symbol: Are They Publicly Traded?
Investors cannot purchase shares of Zacks because the company is privately held.
Zacks Review Final Thoughts
Short-term traders may like to use their website to take the pulse of the market. However, day traders may use free tools to generate trading ideas. There is a free registration option to access quotes, charts, news & basic research, portfolio tracker & email alerts. You can even consult the famous Zacks Rank scoring for stocks, mutual funds & ETFs.
If you register with Zacks you are agreeing to receive communications, i.e. you will be on their mailing lists (plural). As a result, you will probably receive more offers than you’d like to. You can register or just find out more about their services here.
Remember that ultimately, to be a successful trader, it is best to learn what to do vs. being told what to do. As American novelist, Alice Walker says “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”
