Seeking Alpha
{{Short description|Crowd-sourced content service for financial markets}}
{{Infobox website
| name = Seeking Alpha
| logo = Seeking Alpha Logo.svg
| company_type = Private
| foundation = {{start date and age|2004}}
| founder = David Jackson
| location_city = Ra'anana
| location_country = Israel
| area_served = Worldwide
| key_people = David Jackson (CEO)
| industry = Financial publications
| owner = Seeking Alpha Ltd.
| num_employees = 170
| url = {{URL|https://seekingalpha.com}}
| website_type = Financial commentary and analysis
| language = English
}}
Seeking Alpha is a crowd-sourced content service that publishes news on financial markets. It is accessible via a website and mobile app and offers both free and paid subscriptions.{{Cite news |title=Seeking Alpha Subscriptions - Compare Basic, Premium & PRO |url=https://seekingalpha.com/subscriptions |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20250424141436/https://seekingalpha.com/subscriptions |archive-date=2025-04-24 |access-date=2025-04-25 |work=Seeking Alpha |language=en-US}} Independent contributors, mostly from the buy side{{Citation needed|date=May 2025}}, write almost all of the articles published by the service and are paid based on how many subscribers access their articles.
In addition to investment ideas, analysis, and news, Seeking Alpha publishes ratings on stocks from its contributing analysts, and its own quantitative stock ratings.{{Cite web |title=Quant Ratings & Factor Grades FAQ |url=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4263303-quant-ratings-and-factor-grades-faq |access-date=2025-05-07 |website=Seeking Alpha}}{{Cite journal |last1=Guo |first1=Yuling |last2=Jame |first2=Russell |date=2023-08-14 |title=Quantitative Analysis and the Value of Social Media Investment Research |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4540580 |access-date=2025-05-07 |website=SSRN|doi=10.2139/ssrn.4540580 }}
Seeking Alpha was founded in 2004 by former Morgan Stanley technology analyst David Jackson.{{Cite news | url=https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/seeking-alpha-needs-to-take-stock-of-its-policies-1395420277 | title=Seeking Alpha Needs to Take Stock of its Policies | first=John | last=Kimelman | work=Barron's | date=March 21, 2014 | url-access=subscription}}
The company established distribution partnerships with MSN, CNBC, MarketWatch, NASDAQ and TheStreet.com.
Seeking Alpha’s model for sourcing investment ideas and analysis
Seeking Alpha’s model for sourcing investment ideas and analysis uses a combination of crowd-sourcing, quality control by professional editors, and community feedback.
Investors and other non-professional analysts submit articles containing investment ideas or analysis to Seeking Alpha’s editors, disclosing positions in stocks they write about.{{Cite web |title=Editorial Principles |url=https://about.seekingalpha.com/editorial-principles |access-date=2025-05-07 |website=About Seeking Alpha |language=en-US}}{{Cite journal |last1=Campbell |first1=John L. |last2=DeAngelis |first2=Matthew D. |last3=Moon |first3=James R. |date=2019-09-01 |title=Skin in the game: personal stock holdings and investors' response to stock analysis on social media |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11142-019-09498-9 |journal=Review of Accounting Studies |language=en |volume=24 |issue=3 |pages=731–779 |doi=10.1007/s11142-019-09498-9 |issn=1573-7136}} Seeking Alpha’s editors decide whether articles meet the quality criteria{{Cite web |title=Article Submission Guidelines |url=https://about.seekingalpha.com/article-submission-guidelines |access-date=2025-05-07 |website=About Seeking Alpha |language=en-US}} to be published to the broader community. Contributors receive payment for published articles.{{Cite web |title=Article Payments |url=https://about.seekingalpha.com/article-payments |access-date=2025-05-07 |website=About Seeking Alpha |language=en-US}}{{Cite journal |last1=Chen |first1=Hailiang |last2=Hu |first2=Yu Jeffrey |last3=Huang |first3=Shan |date=2019-04-03 |title=Monetary Incentive and Stock Opinions on Social Media |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07421222.2019.1598686 |journal=Journal of Management Information Systems |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=391–417 |doi=10.1080/07421222.2019.1598686 |issn=0742-1222}}
Feedback and additional perspectives are added by community comments.{{Cite web |title=Community Guidelines |url=https://about.seekingalpha.com/community-guidelines |access-date=2025-05-07 |website=About Seeking Alpha |language=en-US}}{{Cite journal |last1=Chen |first1=Hailiang |last2=De |first2=Prabuddha |last3=Hu |first3=Yu (Jeffrey) |last4=Hwang |first4=Byoung-Hyoun |date=2014-05-01 |title=Wisdom of Crowds: The Value of Stock Opinions Transmitted Through Social Media |url=https://academic.oup.com/rfs/article-abstract/27/5/1367/1581938?redirectedFrom=fulltext |journal=The Review of Financial Studies |volume=27 |issue=5 |pages=1367–1403 |doi=10.1093/rfs/hhu001 |issn=0893-9454}} A dispute process enables the correction of material inaccuracies or the removal of articles.{{Cite web |title=Dispute an Article |url=https://about.seekingalpha.com/dispute-an-article |access-date=2025-05-07 |website=About Seeking Alpha |language=en-US}}
Results of recommendations (2005–2012)
In 2014, the Review of Financial Studies published Wisdom of Crowds: The Value of Stock Opinions Transmitted Through Social Media. Researchers from City University of Hong Kong, Purdue University and Georgia Institute of Technology analyzed approximately 100,000 Seeking Alpha articles and commentary published between 2005 and 2012. The researchers looked at the ability of Seeking Alpha articles to predict not only future stock returns (a variable susceptible to influence by analysts' published opinions), but also future earnings surprises (a variable unlikely to be influenced by published opinions). The authors found that views expressed in Seeking Alpha articles, as well as reader commentaries on those articles, did predict future stock returns over every time-frame examined, from one month to three years. Articles and reader commentaries also predicted earning surprises.{{cite journal |last1=Hu |first1=Yu (Jeffrey) | first2=Hailiang | last2=Chen | first3=Prabuddha | last3=De | first4=Byoung-Hyoun | last4=Hwang| title=Wisdom of Crowds: The Value of Stock Opinions Transmitted Through Social Media |journal=The Review of Financial Studies |date=May 2014 |volume=247 |issue=5 |pages=1367*1403 |url=https://academic.oup.com/rfs/article-abstract/27/5/1367/1581938?redirectedFrom=fulltext |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150328002736/http://rfs.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/5/1367.full.pdf+html|url-status=live |archive-date=2015-03-28 }}{{cite news |last=Chernova |first=Yuliya |title=Study: Crowdsourced Stock Opinions Beat Analysts, News |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-VCDB-14192 | work=The Wall Street Journal| date=March 19, 2014 | url-access=subscription }}
Awards and recognition
In 2007, Seeking Alpha was selected by Kiplinger's as Best Investment Informant.{{Cite news | url=https://www.kiplinger.com/article/spending/t050-c000-s002-the-2007-best-list.html | title=The 2007 Best List | work=Kiplinger's Personal Finance | date=November 2007}}
In 2011, Seeking Alpha Market Currents was listed as number one in Inc.'s list of Essential Economic blogs.{{cite news |last=von Hoffman |first=Constantine |title=10 Essential Economic Blogs| url=https://www.inc.com/constantine-von-hoffman/10-essential-news-sources-for-economic-heretics.html | work=Inc. |date=December 26, 2011}}
In 2013, Wired named Seeking Alpha one of the "core nutrients of a good data diet".{{Cite magazine | url=https://www.wired.com/2013/08/101signals-business/ | title=101 Signals: Want to Know Business? These Are the Only People You Need to Follow | magazine=Wired | date=August 14, 2013 | url-access=limited}}
Alleged use by stock manipulators, and subsequent policy changes
In April 2017, the SEC announced enforcement actions{{Cite web |title=SEC.gov {{!}} SEC: Payments for Bullish Articles on Stocks Must Be Disclosed to Investors |url=https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2017-79 |access-date=2025-05-29 |website=www.sec.gov}} against 27 individuals and entities behind various alleged stock promotion schemes that left investors with the impression they were reading independent, unbiased analyses on investing websites, while writers were being secretly compensated for touting company stocks. Seeking Alpha was among the websites used by the stock manipulators.{{Cite web |last=Garde |first=Damian |date=2017-04-10 |title=Biotech has a fake news problem. Now, the SEC is cracking down |url=https://www.statnews.com/2017/04/10/sec-biotech-fake-news/ |access-date=2025-05-29 |website=STAT |language=en-US}}
Seeking Alpha responded in the same month by strengthening its policies to prevent use of its platform by stock promoters.{{Cite web |last=Hoffman |first=Eli |date=April 11, 2017 |title=Seeking Alpha Applauds The SEC's Actions To Stomp Out Stock Promotion |url=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4061813-seeking-alpha-applauds-the-secs-actions-to-stomp-out-stock-promotion |access-date=2025-05-29 |website=Seeking Alpha}} The new policies required that articles on stocks suspected of promotion be review by a managing editor, IP tracking be deployed to cross-check article submissions against each other, and improved analyst ID verification.
In a subsequent study of articles published before Seeking Alpha’s policy changes,{{Cite journal |last=Mitts |first=Joshua |date=June 2020 |title=Short and Distort |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/711119 |journal=The Journal of Legal Studies |volume=49 |issue=2 |pages=287–334 |doi=10.1086/711119 |issn=0047-2530 |ref=mitts-2020}} Joshua Mitts of Columbia Law School finds that pseudonymous articles published on Seeking Alpha between 2010 and 2017 showed evidence of use by short-sellers using pseudonyms to manipulate stock prices for short-term profits. He suggests that manipulation was enabled by Seeking Alpha’s policy of allowing contributing analysts to use pseudonyms without verifying their true identities, which allowed manipulators to switch identities without accountability. Mitts's study concludes that the publication of negative Seeking Alpha articles by a group of writers resulted in over $20 billion in mispricing and attributed this to manipulation. In a subsequent post, Mitts and John C. Coffee describe the manipulation.{{cite web|last1=Coffee|first1=John C. Jr.|last2=Mitts|first2=Joshua|title=Short Selling and the New Market Manipulation|url=https://clsbluesky.law.columbia.edu/2019/03/18/short-selling-and-the-new-market-manipulation/|website=The CLS Blue Sky Blog|publisher=Columbia Law School|date=March 18, 2019}} Seeking Alpha has not been held legally liable by either a court or the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and no definitive verdict has been reached in this matter.
Seeking Alpha’s subsequent policy on use of pseudonyms{{Cite web |title=Policy on pseudonymous contributors |url=https://about.seekingalpha.com/policy-on-pseudonymous-analysts |access-date=2025-05-29 |website=About Seeking Alpha |language=en-US}} bars analysts from changing from one pseudonym to another, requires analysts with SEC actions against them to use real names, and disallows real-sounding pseudonyms.
Seeking Alpha’s subsequent editorial policies on short ideas{{Cite web |title=Summary of Editorial Policies |url=https://about.seekingalpha.com/summary-editorial-policies |access-date=2025-05-29 |website=About Seeking Alpha |language=en-US}} require analysts to include links to sources to support key claims, and to contact the company’s management via email to give it an opportunity to respond to allegations of accounting irregularities or management wrongdoing. It disallows the use of exaggerated, inappropriate, or legal terminology such as “scam”, “scheme”, “fraud”, or “illegal” in titles, and disallows the repetition of allegations made by others, such as short sellers, in articles.
See also
References
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