Market fluctuations are often triggered by significant events such as earnings announcements, mergers, stock splits, and analyst evaluations. Briefing.com has been offering comprehensive stock market analysis since 1993, with its Briefing In Play feature emerging as a favorite among investors for its live market coverage. This review of Briefing.com highlights its key features and explains why it stands out as one of the premier stock news apps.
What Is Briefing.com?
Briefing.com has cemented its position as a leading subscription-based trading news platform tailored for day traders seeking prompt alerts on actionable news items amidst the deluge of stock-related information daily. While Briefing.com stories are seamlessly incorporated into the news streams of various brokerages, its standalone service offers notably robust real-time stock analysis, courtesy of its team of specialized financial analysts.
The headlines curated by Briefing.com furnish a substantial portion of the live research necessary for intra-day and short-term traders to capitalize on market-moving news before widespread market shifts occur.
Briefing.com Features
Charts/Technical Indicators
Although Briefing.com isn’t primarily focused on providing charting services, technical charts are sporadically featured within its news feed. It highlights technical movements in stocks identified from external charting and technical analysis services.
News
At the core of Briefing.com lies its Live In Play feed, continually updated in real-time throughout the day. This feed presents a dynamic list of headlines, customizable to display all securities covered by Briefing.com or solely those related to stocks within a user-defined portfolio. Headlines are organized by stock ticker symbols, facilitating swift identification of relevant stories for trading purposes. The feed can be further filtered by various types of news, including broker research, earnings reports, IPO updates, options activity, technical analysis, and more. Additionally, Briefing.com offers a Dual Live In Play feed for users to view two customizable news feeds simultaneously.
Calendars
The platform also provides a useful calendar view, presenting major financial events in a convenient and adaptable format for daily or future week monitoring. Users can track upcoming earnings reports, IPOs, earnings guidance, analyst upgrades and downgrades, and other significant events. Detailed information about individual events is readily accessible, aiding traders in understanding their potential impact. Moreover, traders can maintain personalized calendars by adding events from the overarching calendar for quick reference.
Alerts
Alerts are occasionally integrated into the main news feeds to notify users when securities breach key technical support and resistance levels. Trader subscription holders receive additional alerts tailored for swing traders, assisting in tracking long and short positions for potential trading opportunities. Setting alerts for favored stocks, whether sourced from Motley Fool’s recommendations or personal research, is a feature appreciated by users.
Watch Lists
Briefing.com enables users to create multiple portfolios, effectively serving as watchlists, as the Live In Play feed can be filtered to display headlines exclusively related to stocks within these portfolios.
Customization and Saved Layouts
Being browser-based, Briefing.com offers extensive layout customization options. While the default setting presents the Live In Play feed in single or dual-window formats, users can detach any news feed window into a separate window or tab. Moreover, the platform includes a “Dashboard” visualization featuring a news feed, highlights from saved portfolios, and a feed of in-depth analysis stories. Users can create and save up to four custom workspaces from a range of standard formats.
Compatible Brokers
Numerous online brokers integrate Briefing.com news into their platforms, either for free or at a discounted rate. However, the analysis feeds available in the Plus and Trader subscription services remain exclusive to Briefing.com.
What Type of Trader is Briefing.com Best for?
Briefing.com caters primarily to intra-day traders and swing traders seeking real-time headlines and news analysis to assist in identifying potential trades. Nonetheless, even longer-term investors can find value in Briefing.com’s analytical features and its focus on presenting actionable trades within the Live In Play feed. In summary, Briefing.com serves as a valuable resource for traders aiming to proactively respond to news developments rather than reactively adjusting to market shifts post-news dissemination.
Briefing.com Pricing Options
Briefing.com presents three tiers of service – Briefing In Play, Briefing In Play Plus, and Briefing Trader – all offering a 30-day free trial period.
Briefing In Play caters primarily to traders, furnishing actionable headlines and live research capabilities, albeit with limited analysis features. The base service is priced at $65 per month or $480 annually.
Briefing In Play Plus augments the offering with additional tools for generating stock ideas and analyzing stocks and options strategies, catering particularly to the needs of swing traders seeking detailed analysis. This tier is available at $90 per month or $720 annually.
Briefing Trader furnishes proprietary trading signals alongside headlines, supplemented by real-time analysis from Briefing.com’s financial analysts. This premium service is priced at $300 per month or $3300 annually.
Briefing.com Pros and Cons
Pros:
- The Live In Play feed is carefully curated to present only actionable news and headlines.
- Calendars promptly showcase financial events and provide historical data (such as earnings reports and guidance).
- News feeds offer the option to filter content based on multiple custom portfolios.
- The browser interface is efficient, easy to navigate, and allows for up to four saved workspaces.
- A complimentary 30-day trial period is available for all three subscription tiers.
Cons:
- There is no feature to filter the Live In Play feed based on stock fundamentals (e.g., market capitalization).
- The service may be expensive for traders seeking primarily a streamlined financial news stream.
Final Thought
Briefing.com In Play offers an excellent real-time market news feature encompassing a wide range of market sectors, providing insights, market analysis, and fundamentals. The platform boasts user-friendly navigation and simplicity.
However, the pricing structure lacks transparency as users are required to provide their email address before accessing the cost details, which could be improved. Discounts are available on the website, and it’s advisable to leverage them when signing up for the free trial. This ensures a discounted rate when transitioning from the trial to a paid subscription.
Briefing.com faces competition from platforms like TheFly.com and Hammerstone Markets. While I’ve utilized all these services, my preference currently leans towards Hammerstone Markets for its apparent speed advantage.