At a price point of $30,000 per year, a Bloomberg terminal is prohibitively expensive for many investors but that doesn't mean you can't get the information you need. These great investment research tools will help you get an edge without breaking the bank.
Cost effective alternatives to a Bloomberg Terminal
Docoh/CapEdge
We love Docoh (now CapEdge). Docoh has financial data, SEC filing search, earnings transcripts, market news, stock alerts and charting. It’s all free and has a great user interface.
EDGAR
Company-reported financial and transactional data is reported to the SEC through the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system (“EDGAR”). You can find full financials, XBRL metadata, insider transaction information, prospectuses and more. EDGAR also provides full-text search. EDGAR is free but not trivial to scrape. Refer to the Financial APIs section for programmatic resources. EDGAR is a government hosted resource provided for free.
TIKR
TIKR provides financial tools like a stock screener, financial statements analysis, stock valuation metrics, ratios, charts, news, and filings. In addition to the free plan TIKR offers two other tiers for $14.95 or $29.95.
Koyfin
Koyfin is similar to TIKR in many ways. It provides market data, filings, news, charting etc. In addition to their free plan TIKR has three paid tiers costing $15, $35 or $70 per month.
OpenBB
OpenBB is a desktop application with built-in scripting tools (Jupyter notebooks). It allows you to import your own data so you can do forecasting and more. OpenBB has a free plan as well as a paid plan which has a waitlist, no price was listed.
FINVIZ
FINVIZ includes financial news, market heat maps, comparative charts, and sector performance tools. In addition to the free plan there is another option that costs $24.96/mo.
TradingView
TradingView is a stock charting tool with other features including alerts, heat maps, and trading simulations. It also has a stock screener. Trading view offers three plans at $14.95, $29.95 or $59.95 per month. Each has a 30 day free trial.
Tiingo
Tiingo offers free screening and portfolio monitoring. Tiingo is best known for their API. The paid version of Tiingo costs $30/mo.
Top paid financial intelligence software options
Bloomberg
The Bloomberg terminal provides financial and market data, news feeds, messaging, and trade execution services. Most Bloomberg setups have between two and six displays. It is available for an annual fee of $24,240 per user ($27,660 per year for firms that use only one terminal), leased out in two-year contracts.
S&P Capital IQ
S&P Capital IQ provides more or less everything Bloomberg does without the execution services or messaging. CapIQ has more private company data and often better fundamentals data quality. Find a comparison between Bloomberg and CapIQ here. CapIQ costs about $25,000 per team. Because CapIQ has team-based pricing it can be a bit easier to share the tool. S&P has many other products, including debt ratings and data feeds, which are all priced separately. Most S&P products have a price point of $15,000 per year or higher.
FactSet
FactSet consolidates data on global markets, public and private companies, and equity and fixed-income portfolios. FactSet has limited Canadian coverage. The cost of a FactSet subscription is $12,000 per year for the full product.
Eikon
Refinitiv Eikon provides news and data services via an “open-technology” platform. Eikon has exclusive access to Reuters news. The cost of Eikon is $22,000 per year, but a stripped-down version can cost as little as $3,600 per year.
In conclusion, Bloomberg remains a safe, convenient and comprehensive resource, but there are some market data providers that can get you some of the public markets data for fraction of the cost or free.
While you are here make sure to check out our AI powered software, which will summarise the filings and transcript data for you to save time and make the earnings season and coverage initiation go much smoother.
And if you are interested in other tools that could take your investment analysis workflow to the next level see our complete list of free & paid equity research software and list of top AI tools for equity research.
Last Updated: 15 Nov, 2023