How Am I Paid For My “Consulting” or Advisory Services?

It isn’t unusual for readers to ask me for additional help or advice. I have never charged a fee and have no intention of doing so. My goal is to help family, friends, and other investors learn things that I have learned over the years. Our income from Social Security, dividends, and options trades is considerably more than we need to continue to cover our living costs, travel expenses, and charitable giving.

Can I Earn Income Without Billing You?

There are times when I can earn some income simply by recommending a service or a product. For example, we might get some benefit from recommending SimpliSafe as a home security product and service – although we have not seen any income from those referrals to date.

Seeking Alpha Affiliate Referral Program

Recently I was made aware of a Seeking Alpha Affiliate Program. I read the fine print about this program, and I decided that I can comply with the requirements. This program gives me a portion of the fees that Seeking Alpha receives for subscriptions that are the result of a reader clicking on a link I provide on my website. In other words, I could receive a commission for helping build the Seeking Alpha customer base.

The “catch” is that a subscriber (that signed up for a subscription) subscribes within 30 days of clicking on the Consultant’s Seeking Alpha landing page. Of course it also means that the subscriber does not cancel his or her subscription during a free trial period and for additional 3 days after becoming a paying subscriber.

Seeking Alpha’s Value

Compared to the other resources I use; Seeking Alpha is clearly the best. I like the tools on the site for finding, reviewing, and comparing stocks and ETFs. They also have resources for mutual funds. Of particular value are the summary screen for each potential investment, ratings, including the proprietary QUANT rating, and excellent Dividends information (a Scorecard, Dividend Yield, Dividend Growth, Dividend Safety, and Dividend History).

I also like having my portfolio of investments linked and updated from Fidelity and I can create my own “portfolios” of stocks or ETFs that I want to watch for possible future investment opportunities.

What are Quant Ratings & Factor Grades?

“Seeking Alpha’s Quant Ratings are an objective, unemotional evaluation of each stock based on data, such as the company’s financial statements, the stock’s price performance, and analysts’ estimates of the company’s future revenue and earnings. Over 100 metrics for each stock are compared to the same metrics for the other stocks in its sector. The stock is then assigned a rating (Strong Sell, Sell, Hold, Buy or Strong Buy), and a score (from 1.0 to 5.0, where 1.0 is Strong Sell and 5.0 is Strong Buy).” – Source: Seeking Alpha

The articles contributed by others have helped me understand the risks and rewards of various investments. Contributors also rate each investment and Seeking Alpha also provides a Wall Street analyst comparison when it comes to Sell, Hold or Buy. This gives you three sets of opinions about most investments. If the QUANT, Seeking Alpha analyst, and Wall Street ratings are all “BUY” then there is a strong probability that will be a good investment for me to consider.

There are also powerful charting capabilities, including the ability to see returns over various periods of time and also the ability to see total returns. There are also links for financials, earnings, valuation, growth, profitability,  momentum, peers and options.

Finally, there are quick ways to see QUANT ratings for the position but also quick links to see where an investment falls compared to all investments, where it falls within the sector, and where it falls within the industry group.

Recommendation

Of all of the resources I use, the most helpful is Seeking Alpha. If you decide to explore a Seeking Alpha subscription, please use the link below the Seeking Alpha Get Premium image.

I can hear a question already. “Is the Premium subscription worth $269?” Here are my answers: 1) How much have you paid financial or investment advisors for their help? I suspect it is in the thousands of dollars over time. This solution is far less costly and can give you advice anytime, day or night, regarding most investments. 2) If you have more than one advisor, it is likely you will get better advice. Good advice on a $10,000 in investment can help prevent costly mistakes. Bad investment decisions will cost far more than the cost of a Seeking Alpha subscription.

SEEKING ALPHA INFORMATION AND SUBSCRIPTION

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Past performance does not guarantee future results, Seeking Alpha does not provide personalized advice, and it is not a registered investment adviser.

We accept advertising compensation from companies that appear on our site. This website represents my opinions, which may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha, and does not constitute an investment recommendation or advice.