What is The OpenSky® Secured Visa® Credit Card?

The OpenSky® Secured Visa® Credit Card was created by Capital Bank N.A. and was created for people who need to establish or rebuild credit.

They don’t check your credit when you apply and you can get approved with poor credit or no credit at all. 

The card reports to all three major credit reporting agencies, which will help you build credit if you handle your card well. 

Like most secured cards, it does require an initial security deposit once you get approved.

What Makes OpenSky® Secured Visa® Credit Card Different?

The biggest selling point of the OpenSky® Secured Visa® Credit Card is that it’s available to almost anyone. You can apply with no credit check and no bank account.

OpenSky® Secured Visa® Credit Card Rates & Fees

Below are some of the basic features of the OpenSky® Secured Visa® credit card:

• Interest rate: 25.64% Variable APR
• Annual fee: $35
• Rewards: None
• *Security deposit: $200 minimum, $3,000 maximum
• Foreign transaction fee: 3% of each transaction in U.S. dollars
• Cash advance fee: Either $6 or 5% of the amount of each cash advance, whichever is greater.
• Late payment fee: Up to $40.00
• Returned payment fee: Up to $25.00

Unlike some other secured cards, you can’t upgrade the OpenSky® Secured Visa® credit card to an unsecured card. Once your credit improves you can apply for an unsecured card or a no-fee secured card, close your account, and get your deposit back.

*With secured cards, you will need to provide a refundable security deposit, which determines what your initial credit limit will be. The credit card company holds that deposit in case you don’t pay your bill.

OpenSky® Secured Visa® Credit Card Features

The OpenSky® Secured Visa® Credit Card has several features that make it one of the best secured credit cards.

The main features of this card include the following: 

• No credit check to apply. Zero credit risk to apply!
• Looking to build or rebuild your credit? 2/3 of cardholders receive a 48+ point improvement after making 3 on-time payments  
• Extend your $200 credit line by getting considered for an unsecured credit line increase after 6 months, no additional deposit required!
• Get free monthly access to your FICO score in our mobile application
• Build your credit history across 3 major credit reporting agencies: Experian, Equifax, and Transunion
• Add to your mobile wallet and make purchases using Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Google Pay
• Fund your card with a low $200 refundable security deposit to get a $200 credit line
• Apply in less than 5 minutes with our mobile first application 
• Choose the due date that fits your schedule with flexible payment dates
• Fund your security deposit over 60 days with the option to make partial payments 
• Join over 1.2 million cardholders who’ve used OpenSky to build their credit

*View the cardholder agreement

Paying Your Security Deposit

Your security deposit is what will determine your initial credit limit. During Step 4 of the application process, you will choose how you want to make your security deposit.

If You Have A Bank Account

You need to provide your debit card details.  

OpenSky® accepts either MasterCard® or Visa® and the application is designed to make it quick and easy no matter if you are on mobile or desktop.

When you submit your application, you are giving OpenSky® the authority to process the full security deposit, this will place an immediate hold on the funds selected as your credit line.

If your application is not approved, your money will be posted back to your account within five days.

They don’t store your debit card information on file.

If You Don’t Have A Bank Account

If you don’t have a bank account, in Step 4 on the application you will need to select the “I’ll need to pay my security deposit at a later date” option.

Once you have been approved, you will receive an email with instructions on how and where to send in your deposit via money order or Western Union.

When you’re ready to close your account, your security deposit will be refunded to you by check.

Keep in mind that as long as you don’t have an outstanding account balance the funds will come back to you. If you have a balance when you close the card they will keep whatever you owe and return the difference. 

Requesting A Credit Limit Increase

You can request a credit limit increase at any time by contacting the Customer Service Department.

If you get approved, you’ll receive instructions on how to send the additional security deposit needed to fund the increase to your credit limit.

You may be charged a fee to get the increased credit limit and all credit lines are subject to underwriting approval. 

OpenSky® Secured Visa® Credit Card Pros & Cons

Steps To Take After You’re Approved

The real work starts once you have been approved for your OpenSky® Secured Visa® Credit Card.

Pay Your Balance In Full Every Month

Like most unsecured cards for bad credit, the Surge Mastercard carries a relatively high interest rate. If you pay your balance in full by the end of each statement period, that won’t matter, because you won’t pay interest, unless you use cash advances.

If you carry a balance over to the next statement period the balance will accumulate interest, and it will stack up very quickly. Paying your balance in full every month is one of the keys to keeping a credit card affordable.

Never make just the minimum payment, tempting though it may seem. That is the fastest way to get caught in the credit card debt trap.

Make On Time Payments

Paying on time sounds like a simple thing to do, but we all live in the real world where things almost never go as planned. It’s not always easy.

Even though it’s not easy, it’s extremely important. Late payments trigger late fees, which can be substantial and can add to your financial problems. They may also trigger penalty interest rates.

Late payments will also do serious damage to your credit score. Payment history is the single most important component of your credit score, and even one late payment can knock your score back substantially.

No matter what, avoid late payments.

Keep Credit Utilization Low

Another factor to consider is credit utilization. This is the percentage of your balance that you actually use. Your balance should never be more than 30% of your credit limit, and under 10% is better.

This can be complicated if your credit limit is low. If your credit limit is $1000, you will want to keep your balance under $300, and under $100 would be better. If your limit is $500, you’ll want to keep your balance under $150, or better yet under $75.

This can be hard to do, but if building credit is a priority keeping a low balance is essential. This is one place where the relatively easy limit increases of the Surge card can help you. A higher limit means lower credit utilization, as long as you keep your spending under control.

Here’s a proven way to build credit with a credit card. Put a small recurring expense on your card, like a Netflix subscription or you internet bill. Set up a pull from your checking account to cover the payment, and put the card away. The balance will stay low, the card will stay active, and all payments will be made on time.

This works best with a no-fee card. Using a card with high fees can be a very expensive way to build credit!

Monitor Your Credit

One of the most overlooked areas of building credit is monitoring your credit. This is truly your first line of defense when trying to build or rebuild your credit.

You should try to find a service that allows you to monitor all 3 of your reports.

With Surge Mastercard you can get your VantageScore 3.0 on your monthly statements. But if you would like to have access to your score more often than once per month it might be worth looking elsewhere.

Monitor Your Credit for FREE!

Credit Sesame’s 100% free credit monitoring service is hassle-free with no strings attached.

Get Started Now →

How Do I Close My OpenSky® Secured Visa® Credit Card?

You can close your account at any time by contacting the Customer Service Department at the phone number listed on your billing statement or on the back of your credit card. You can also mail a request to:

OpenSky® Card Services 
PO Box 9224
Old Bethpage, NY 11804-9224

Is There A Fee For Closing My Account?

Outside of the fees associated with your remaining balance, there is no fee for closing your account. 

You will also receive your security deposit back that you used to open your account.

I would recommend keeping the card active as long as you can, there really isn’t a reason to cancel the card any time soon.

Alternatives To The OpenSky® Secured Visa® Credit Card

A secured credit card through Capital Bank N.A. is a great way to start building credit.

There are other options available for building or rebuilding your credit, and many of them can be used alongside the OpenSky® Card.

Experian BOOST can help you build your credit record with phone and utility payments… and it’s absolutely free!.

Try Experian BOOST Now!

Self online credit builder loans are straightforward to apply for and the application process is easy.

Learn More

Taking Action On Your Credit

If you have no credit, a thin credit file, of damaged credit, a credit card can help you build a better credit record. The OpenSky® Secured Visa® Credit Card is a great starter choice for people who are having a hard time getting approved for other cards.

There are risks involved in using any credit card, and you’ll need to use discipline and handle your card well to see your credit grow. If you use it badly it could even hurt your credit.

If you have decided on a secured credit card, the only real drawback to this one is the annual fee. There are other secured cards with no fee, and we’d suggest at least checking those to see if you qualify before settling on a card with an annual fee.

If you don’t qualify – and most no-fee secured cards are harder to get than this one – the OpenSky® Secured Visa® Credit Card will be one of your top choices.

All Credit Builder Accounts made by Lead Bank, Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender, Sunrise Banks, N.A. Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender or Atlantic Capital Bank, N.A. Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender. Subject to ID Verification. Individual borrowers must be a U.S. Citizen or permanent resident and at least 18 years old. Valid bank account and Social Security Number are required. All loans are subject to ID verification and consumer report review and approval. Results are not guaranteed. Improvement in your credit score is dependent on your specific situation and financial behavior. Failure to make monthly minimum payments by the payment due date each month may result in delinquent payment reporting to credit bureaus which may negatively impact your credit score. This product will not remove negative credit history from your credit report. All loans subject to approval. All Certificates of Deposit (CD) are deposited in Lead Banks, Member FDIC, Sunrise Banks, N.A., Member FDIC or Atlantic Capital Bank, N.A., Member FDIC.
The Self Visa® Credit Card is issued by Lead Bank, Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender.

The post OpenSky® Secured Visa® Credit Card Review (2023) appeared first on FinMasters.

They’re a bit of a hidden gem, but don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Let’s dive into some of the best no-credit-check options out there.

Cards	Regular APR	Annual Fee	Rewards	Best For
Tomo Credit Card	0%	$0	Yes	Best Unsecured Credit Card
OpenSky® Secured Visa® Credit Card	25.64% (variable)	$35	No	Best for Unbanked Consumers
Chime Credit Builder Secured Visa® Credit Card	N/A	$0	No	Best for Revolving Security Deposits
GO2bank Secured Visa® Credit Card	22.99%	$0	Yes	Best Traditional Secured Card
Self Credit Builder Account with Secured Visa® Credit Card	N/A	$25	No	Best for Pairing with a Credit Builder Loan

5 Best Credit Cards With No Credit Check

When compiling this list, we primarily considered the following factors:

• Annual fees
• Cashback rewards
• Means of underwriting
• Customer review trends
• Security deposit requirements
• Annual percentage rates (APR)

Based on that research, here are our top picks for the best credit cards with no credit check:

These cards don’t require credit checks, but that doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to qualify for them. Several have alternative eligibility requirements, and the card issuers may reject your application if you don’t meet them.

BEST UNSECURED CREDIT CARD

Tomo Credit Card

Annual Fee
$0

Regular APR
0%

Rewards
Yes

Additional Requirements
Financial history check

Instead of checking your credit score, Tomo uses your financial history to underwrite your application by reviewing your bank and investment account activities. If you have healthy cash flows, an emergency fund, and an investment portfolio, you should qualify for the card, which has no fees and rewards.

In addition, the Tomo Credit Card is unsecured, which means you won’t have to provide a security deposit when you sign up for an account. There aren’t many unsecured credit cards with no credit check.

Read more

Learn More

BEST FOR UNBANKED CONSUMERS

OpenSky® Secured Visa® Credit Card

Annual Fee
$35

Regular APR
25.64% (variable)

Rewards
No

Additional Requirements
N/A

Credit cards with no credit check usually require a security deposit. Since the providers can’t verify your creditworthiness, it’s reasonable to ask for another form of assurance. Unfortunately, you typically need a checking account to fund that deposit. As a result, unbanked individuals with poor credit struggle even more to get credit cards.

OpenSky is one of the few credit card issuers that doesn’t require a bank account when you apply. Its card is secured, but you can fund your deposit via Western Union transfer, check, or money order.

Read more

Learn More

BEST FOR REVOLVING SECURITY DEPOSITS

Chime Credit Builder Secured Visa^® Credit Card

Annual Fee
$0

Regular APR
N/A

Rewards
No

Additional Requirements
Chime checking account

Most secured credit cards require that you provide a lump-sum deposit upfront equal to the account’s credit limit. It’s refundable, but you won’t see it until you upgrade to an unsecured line or close the card.

The Chime credit builder secured card requires a deposit at the beginning of every month instead. It becomes your credit limit for the period and automatically pays off your balance at the end. However, you get to set the monthly deposit, and there’s no minimum, making it much more flexible than traditional secured cards.

Read more

Learn More

BEST TRADITIONAL SECURED CARD

GO2bank Secured Visa® Credit Card

Annual Fee
$0

Regular APR
22.99%

Rewards
Yes

Additional Requirements
GO2bank account

If you want a traditional secured card, GO2bank offers a decent one with no credit check. You need to have a bank account with the provider and set up direct deposit to qualify for the card, but its terms are more favorable than OpenSky’s.

Not only is there no annual fee, but you can earn some reasonable cashback rewards. In addition, the minimum security deposit is much lower than average. You can open a card with as little as $100.

Read more

Learn More

BEST FOR PAIRING WITH A CREDIT BUILDER LOAN

Self Credit Builder Account with Secured Visa® Credit Card

Annual Fee
$25

Regular APR
N/A

Rewards
No

Additional Requirements
Self credit builder loan

Self’s primary product offering is a credit builder loan. It’s an installment debt secured by its own proceeds, which you receive once you pay off the account. It doesn’t require a credit check and is a great way to improve your payment history with installment debt.

If you’re interested in establishing a diverse credit mix, Self is a good option. Once you have the installment account in good standing for three months and pay off at least $100 of its principal, you can automatically open Self’s secured card.

Read more

Learn More

1. Tomo Credit Card

The Tomo Credit Card is one of the more favorable credit cards you can get without a credit check. There are no annual fees or interest charges, and it has a decent rewards program for a card accessible with a bad credit score.

You earn discounts and benefits on Doordash, ShopRunner, and Lyft. Most importantly, the account doesn’t require a security deposit, which is rare for credit cards with no credit check.

That said, Tomo has some notable drawbacks. For one, there are no interest charges because the card won’t let you carry a balance for more than a week. It automatically debits your bank account every Monday to pay off your current balance, no matter when you incurred the charges.

If you want to use your credit card to defer payments, this will be a serious problem, and the Tomo Credit Card might not be your best choice. If your main objective is to build credit, those weekly payments could be ideal, as they will keep your credit utilization low.

In addition, Tomo uses an alternative underwriting method that involves reviewing your bank and investment account activity. As a result, you can still fail to qualify for the account, even though Tomo doesn’t check your credit.

Finally, the company receives consistent complaints from previous applicants and cardholders. Users report encountering glitches and problems throughout their customer journeys, with little assistance from customer support. Tomo is a relatively new company and they may sort these problems out, but you should be aware of them.

Unfortunately, there are very few unsecured credit cards that you can get with no credit check. If you’re not willing to compromise on those two factors, you’ll need to make other sacrifices and take calculated risks.

Learn More: Tomo Credit Card Review (2024): Unsecured Card With No Credit Check

2. OpenSky® Secured Visa® Credit Card

Besides its lack of a credit check, the OpenSky secured account’s primary appeal is that it doesn’t require a bank account. You can qualify for the card without one and pay the security deposit using a money order, check, or Western Union transfer.

That’s highly beneficial to the 6% of American adults who are unbanked, especially since it’s not always easy to rectify that issue. Unpaid overdraft fees, bounced checks, and bank account closures can damage your banking history, making it difficult to qualify for new accounts.

Otherwise, the OpenSky Secured card is a typical starter card. There’s a $35 annual fee, and you won’t earn any cashback rewards on your purchases. It also requires a traditional security deposit, starting at $200.

The APR is relatively low compared to other accounts on this list at 25.64% (variable), but that’s still too high to be affordable. Carrying a balance on even the cheapest of credit cards is a losing strategy.

Unfortunately, reviews indicate that the credit card company’s customer service may leave something to be desired. Apparently, the phone line is often unavailable, and representatives aren’t always as helpful as they could be.

Learn More: OpenSky® Secured Visa® Credit Card Review

3. Chime Credit Builder Secured Visa^® Credit Card

The Chime credit builder card’s unique draw is its revolving security deposit system. Instead of requiring a large lump sum upfront that’s inaccessible for months at a time, you make a new deposit each month.

The amount becomes your credit limit for the period, and the funds you provide go toward your balance at the end of each month. Fortunately, there’s no minimum, so you can forego the deposit entirely when cash is limited.

An interesting result of that system is that Chime doesn’t affect your credit utilization ratio because there’s no fixed credit limit. You don’t have to worry about damaging your score by running up a balance on the account.

Otherwise, the Chime card has fairly average terms. There’s no annual fee and no interest because you can’t carry a balance, but you won’t be able to earn any cashback rewards.

There are no alternative means of underwriting instead of a credit check, but you need a Chime bank account to sign up. The provider won’t accept your monthly deposits from any other account.

Fortunately, Chime generally receives positive customer reviews. Comments indicate that the card is effective at building credit, the mobile app is easy to use, and the customer service is reasonably responsive.

Learn More: Chime Credit Builder Visa® Card Review (2024)

4. GO2bank Secured Visa® Credit Card

GO2bank offers a traditional secured credit card with no credit check. You’ll need to provide a security deposit upfront to qualify, but you get to determine the amount and set your credit limit. The minimum amount is only $100, which is lower than average.

In addition, you must have a GO2bank account with direct deposits of at least $100 in the last 30 days to qualify. The provider requires that you fund your security deposit by transferring money from the GO2bank checking account.

GO2bank’s secured card is pretty rudimentary otherwise, like most credit cards with no credit check. There’s no annual fee, but the APR is high, and you won’t be able to earn any cashback rewards.

The most notable downside is that reviews suggest you may encounter account problems and struggle to receive adequate assistance. Previous customers report that there’s often a language barrier with the support team. However, many complaints are about the company’s prepaid debit cards, not the secured card.

5. Self Credit Builder Account with Secured Visa® Credit Card

The Self Visa credit card is a great way to build a foundation for your credit mix. To qualify for the account, you must first open a Self credit builder loan. It’s a unique type of installment debt that uses your proceeds as collateral, keeping them in a locked account for the life of the loan. As a result, it doesn’t require a credit check either.

During the repayment term, you make monthly payments as you would for any other loan. Once you’ve made three on time and paid off $100 in principal, you can open the Self Visa credit card using the amount as your security deposit.

Other than the unusual process for opening the card, it’s similar to other no-credit-check cards. There’s a $25 annual fee, and no cashback rewards or introductory offers.

Self receives mixed ratings across review platforms. Comments indicate that customer service can be tough to reach when you need to resolve issues or close accounts. In addition, they note that the loan and card are effective at building credit if you pay on time but have no safety net for missed payments and can be costly.

Learn More: Self Visa Credit Card Review

Choose a Card You Can Use Safely

As a result, it’s essential that you build a solid financial foundation and learn to use credit cards safely before applying for one. Here are some best practices to follow:

• Keep an emergency fund equal to your credit limit
• Avoid using cards to finance large purchases
• Set up autopay to prevent yourself from forgetting payments
• Pay your statement balance monthly to avoid interest charges

Credit cards should primarily be a way to build credit and earn rewards. Their interest rates are too high to risk carrying a balance on the account. If you think you might struggle to pay your statement balance on time each month, consider waiting to apply until your finances are more stable.

Learn More: How to Use Credit Cards Wisely: 11 Rules to Live By

Consider Secured Cards with Credit Checks

Applying for a credit card with no credit check is an easy way to qualify for an account despite having bad credit or limited credit history. However, it’s usually not necessary. Plenty of accounts with credit checks are available to subprime applicants.

If you’re willing to undergo incur a hard inquiry, you may be able to qualify for a credit card with more favorable terms than the ones on this list. Explore those options thoroughly before committing to a card with no credit check.

Learn More: The Best Credit Cards for Bad Credit in January 2024

Take Your Next Steps

Opening a credit card is an effective way to establish or rebuild your credit score. You can also significantly speed up the process by acquiring additional credit accounts, especially installment loans that diversify your credit mix.

However, you must learn how credit works before proceeding. Improving your score while protecting your finances is complex, and the journey is long with many potential pitfalls. Fortunately, you can be successful with patience and discipline. It takes time, but your efforts will pay off!

All Credit Builder Accounts made by Lead Bank, Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender, Sunrise Banks, N.A. Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender or Atlantic Capital Bank, N.A. Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender. Subject to ID Verification. Individual borrowers must be a U.S. Citizen or permanent resident and at least 18 years old. Valid bank account and Social Security Number are required. All loans are subject to ID verification and consumer report review and approval. Results are not guaranteed. Improvement in your credit score is dependent on your specific situation and financial behavior. Failure to make monthly minimum payments by the payment due date each month may result in delinquent payment reporting to credit bureaus which may negatively impact your credit score. This product will not remove negative credit history from your credit report. All loans subject to approval. All Certificates of Deposit (CD) are deposited in Lead Banks, Member FDIC, Sunrise Banks, N.A., Member FDIC or Atlantic Capital Bank, N.A., Member FDIC.
The Self Visa® Credit Card is issued by Lead Bank, Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender.

How We Chose the Best Credit Cards with No Credit Check

We evaluated these cards on several criteria.

• Annual fees. No fees are best, and lower fees are better than higher ones.
• Rewards. You don’t expect significant rewards in a card with no credit check, but there’s nothing wrong with taking the rewards you can get.
• Means of underwriting. Even cards with no credit check will look into your creditworthiness. We looked at the way the card issuers do that.
• Customer review trends. A positive reputation is a good thing.
• Security deposit requirements. Most cards with no credit check will require a deposit. A wider range of deposit options is a plus factor.
• Annual percentage rates (APR). If you pay your statements before the due date (as you should), you won’t pay interest at all, but it’s still worth looking for a low APR.

Not all of these factors will be important to all card users. You should look at the factors that are most important to you!

The post Best Credit Cards With No Credit Check in 2024 appeared first on FinMasters.

Important note: if you’re considering any tax relief company, manage your expectations. Nobody can make all tax debt disappear. Professional help may get you a better deal, but the outcome will depend on your situation. If you expect magic, you’re likely to be disappointed.

About Optima Tax Relief

Optima Tax Relief describes itself as the nation’s largest tax relief company. It claims to have resolved over $3 billion in client tax liabilities. 

The Company is based in Santa Ana, CA, and has offices in Scottsdale, AZ, and Chandler, AZ. Online services are available nationwide (except Colorado and Minnesota).

Optima Tax Relief employs an in-house staff of enrolled agents, CPAs, and tax attorneys. Some tax relief companies may pass your case on to an outside law firm and keep part of your fee.

Optima Tax Relief was founded in 2010 by Harry Langenberg and Jesse Stockwell, both of whom remain with the firm as managing partners.

How Optima Tax Relief Works

Optima Tax Relief will work with federal and state taxes, but state tax services are not available in all states. You need at least $10,000 in tax debt to qualify for their services.

Optima Tax Relief works with many types of tax problems, including the following.

• Tax liabilities
• Back taxes
• Levies and liens
• Penalties and interest
• Wage garnishment
• Tax settlement
• Audit Defense
• Payroll tax negotiation

The company uses a three-step process.

• Consultation. You will have a free initial consultation with no obligation. A representative will review your case, lay out your options, and give you a realistic assessment of what Optima Tax Relief can do for you.
• Investigation. Optima Tax Relief will communicate with the IRS, examine your records in detail, and choose appropriate resolution options. You will have to authorize access to personal financial records.
• Resolution. The company will pursue the selected options and try to bring you into full IRS compliance. This does not mean you will have no tax debt. The goal is to reduce your debt as much as possible and work out a feasible payment plan for the rest.

There are many ways to resolve tax debt, and you will work with Optima Tax Relief to select the ones most appropriate for you. Here are some of the options available.

• Installment agreements will not reduce your debts but will make them easier to pay off.
• Offer in compromise is available to taxpayers experiencing financial distress.
• Penalty abatement or adjustment can reduce the penalties charged for previous issues.
• Extension requests may give you more time to pay without incurring penalties.
• Disaster-related relief provides tax breaks for people affected by natural disasters.
• Coronavirus tax relief may be available at both federal and state levels.
• Currently not collectible status may apply if you have no income or assets with which to pay your tax debt.
• The statute of limitations may apply in some cases dealing with older tax debts.
• Innocent spouse relief applies to taxpayers who are being held liable for a spouse’s mistakes or transgressions.
• A tax lien discharge removes a tax lien from a specific property, which may allow you to sell that property.
• A bank levy release means the IRS will no longer seize funds from your bank account. It usually occurs when you have agreed to a payment plan or other settlement.

It’s important to note that all of these devices are open to anyone. You do not need a tax relief company to apply for them. However, the process of assessing your eligibility, choosing options that are likely to be approved, and applying can be complex and challenging. 

Professional assistance does not guarantee success, but it may improve the probability of success.

Availability

Optima Tax Relief provides federal tax relief services online in all states except Colorado and Minnesota.

State tax services are available online in all states except Arizona, Georgia, Delaware, and Connecticut.

The Cost of Optima Tax Relief: Is It Worth It?

Optima Tax Relief does not disclose pricing information on its website. Pricing information given here is sourced from third-party websites and customer reviews. Prices vary according to the specifics of your case and you may be quoted prices higher or lower than those discussed here.

Optima Tax Relief appears to assess fees at two stages of the tax relief process.

• Investigation: you can expect an investigation fee of $295.
• Resolution: Resolution fees can vary widely with the circumstances of your case. Reported fees vary from $995 to $5000 and may be higher for complex cases with large tax liabilities.

These fees are substantial, but they are consistent with fees across the tax relief industry. Optima Tax Relief isn’t offering a screaming great deal, but pricing appears to be fair relative to competitors.

While the overall pricing scheme appears to be fair, it is not transparent: there’s no consistent pricing formula disclosed on the company’s website. Some customer reviews contain complaints indicating that the customers believe they were overcharged, and some reviews report payments much larger than those referenced above.

Optima Tax Relief will refund payments for the investigation phase within 15 days after the initiation of the investigation phase. No refunds are possible after 15 days or for the fees paid for the Resolution phase.

Optima Tax Relief: Customer Reviews

Customer reviews are a useful tool, but they have limitations. It’s important to understand how to evaluate customer reviews. Some reviews may be based on unrealistic expectations, and some companies have been known to manipulate reviews.

Let’s look at what major review sites can tell us about Optima Tax Relief.

Better Business Bureau (BBB)

Optima Tax Relief has an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau (BBB). BBB ratings are based on the company’s responsiveness to complaints, not on the average of customer reviews.

The BBB site lists 686 complaints closed in the last three years and 209 in the last 12 months. The company has responded to all complaints and most appear to be resolved to the customer’s satisfaction

Optima Tax Relief gets 3.88 out of 5 stars from a total of 1,164 customer reviews on the BBB site. The reviews break down into two categories, very positive and very negative, with very few in between.

It’s important to remember that the BBB tends to attract negative reviews, as it’s a place where people traditionally go to complain when they are not satisfied.

Trustpilot

On Trustpilot, Optima Tax Relief gets 4.1 out of 5 stars from 3,116 reviews. 89% of the reviews are five-star or four-star, and 9% are one-star, with negligible percentages in between.

Here are some typical positive reviews.

Here are a few sample negative reviews.

Results on most review sites seem to follow a consistent pattern: large numbers of positive reviews mixed with a smaller number of highly negative reviews. Most customers who leave reviews seem satisfied, but when things go wrong they seem to go seriously wrong.

Some of the negative reviews may come from customers who have unrealistic expectations, but this is impossible to ascertain. If you’re considering retaining Optima Tax Relief you should be aware that while reviews are generally positive there is a minority who have had very unsatisfactory experiences.

The Bottom Line: Is Optima Tax Relief Right For You?

Optima Tax Relief is a legitimate tax relief company with an extensive track record. Some customers have left negative reviews, but that’s true of almost any tax relief company, and the number represents a relatively low percentage of customer reviews.

Does that mean that Optima Tax Relief is the right choice for you? Maybe, maybe not. Even the best financial services companies aren’t always the right fit for a given client. To find out, ask yourself these questions.

• How much tax debt do you owe? Optima Tax Relief won’t consider your case unless your tax debt is $10,000 or above.
• Does Optima Tax Relief provide services in your state? If you live in a state that is not served by the company you’ll need to look for another option.
• How complex is your case? If you have a straightforward problem – for example, if you simply need to ask for an installment agreement or an extension – you might be better off doing it yourself. If you are overwhelmed even thinking about dealing with it, professional help is probably a good idea.
• Have you considered local alternatives? A tax attorney or firm in your area might offer you a competitive package, and you’d have personal contact. If you’re not comfortable dealing with a remote service or working through online customer service, this could be a better option for you.
• Have you shopped around? Comparing several alternatives is always a good idea when you’re in the market for a financial service. There are other tax relief companies out there, and most offer a free initial consultation. Comparing several offers is always worthwhile.

If you answered “yes” to all of these, you might be a good fit with Optima Tax Relief.

Remember that this is a nationwide company with many clients. Your interactions are not likely to be personal. A free initial consultation may feel like a sales call, and during the process, you are likely to be interacting with customer service representatives, not the tax experts doing the work.

If this is a problem for you, you might be better off consulting a local business or law firm with a physical presence in your area.

How We Rated Optima Tax Relief

Tax relief is a unique financial service. No tax relief company can change the tax laws or compel the IRS to cancel tax debts. Tax relief companies can only work with existing laws and policies, and their main service is simply cutting through the masses of red tape and detail that characterize tax problems.

It’s important to assess tax relief companies according to realistic criteria. This is how we evaluated Optima Tax Relief.

• Effectiveness. No tax relief company can make tax debt go away, but Optima Tax Relief has a solid record of achieving as much relief as is legally possible in a given circumstance. Not all customers are happy, but that is true of almost all financial services companies.
• Availability. No service will help you if it isn’t available to you. Optima Tax Relief provides federal tax services in all but two states and state tax services in all but four, resulting in a high score in this category.
• Customer Service. When you’re dealing with a firm that delivers its services online, customer service is important. You need to know that you can reach someone when you have a problem, and you want to do it without fighting your way through masses of automated call centers. Optima Tax Relief gets generally good reviews on this score, but there are a substantial number of complaints about contact and service issues, dropping the score in this category.
• Price. Optima Tax Relief does not disclose its pricing formula online. Third-party reports suggest that services are not cheap, but are analogous to those of competing firms.

We’ll repeat the recommendation that you should shop around before choosing any tax relief company. Comparison shopping can get you a better deal and give you confidence that you’ve selected the best partner for your specific needs.

The post Optima Tax Relief Review 2024: Are They Legit? What Do They Cost? appeared first on FinMasters.

Experian BOOST will place all of your on-time payments on your Experian credit record. They won’t report any missed payments. That can help you build a better credit record.

Experian Boost can also report your rent payments if you pay rent with a credit card or through a direct transfer from your bank account.

How Experian BOOST Can Help

Experian BOOST is designed to help the 62 million Americans who have “thin credit files”. Credit bureaus need the information to establish your creditworthiness, and they need payment history to do that.

Experian BOOST Review: The Pros & Cons of Boost

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Experian BOOST gives Experian access to more payment history, which can boost your credit score.

How Boost Affected Me

I signed up for Experian BOOST with the understanding it can only help your credit score, not hurt it.  What I found was that may be true for your score, but that may not be the case when applying for a loan.

Here’s how it shows up on my credit report.

So here’s what happened: I refinanced my mortgage, and my broker said the utilities I had reported on Boost showed up on my credit report as “self-reported debts.”

That created the impression that I had more monthly debt payments than I actually did. Luckily, the amount was too small to affect my debt-to-income ratio seriously. It is something you should be aware of if you’re going to be applying for a mortgage or any other loan where they look at your debt or debt-to-income ratio.

Can Experian BOOST Hurt Your Credit Score?

Late payments usually hurt your credit score, but that isn’t how Experian Boost works.

Experian only considers positive payment history. That means if you missed your utility payment, rent, or cell phone payment, the late payments won’t bring down your credit score.

Using Experian BOOST: 7 Easy Steps

Here’s how it works:

1. Enroll

Go to Experian.com and click on the “Start for free” button. There is no fee for enrolling in Boost.

2. Give Boost Access to your Checking Account

Boost learns how you pay your utility bills by looking for payments you have made to utility companies from your online checking account. You’ll have to give Boost access to your checking account by providing your login credentials.

If your bank requires multi-factor authentication (like a one-time code texted to your phone), you’ll be prompted to enter this code to verify that you want to give Experian access to your checking account.

Banks are very particular about you sharing your log-in credentials. Be prepared to work through this process.  Be careful not to enter wrong information so you don’t accidentally get locked out of your online bank account.

3. Experian BOOST Finds Your Utility Accounts

Experian BOOST will review your checking or credit card account looking for payments to utility companies. Eligible accounts include:

• Cell phone
• Landline
• Internet
• Cable TV
• Satellite TV
• Power/Electricity
• Gas
• Water
• Waste
• Rent

Experian BOOST will automatically detect payments made to these accounts.

4. Select the Accounts You Want Included in Your Credit Report

If Boost finds at least three payments made to a utility account, this account is eligible to be included in your credit report. Boost then presents all eligible accounts to you so you can pick which ones you want to have included in your Experian credit report.

Boost only includes positive payment history in your credit report. It cannot detect any late payments you might have made or payments you might have skipped.

This is an advantage to the consumer but a disadvantage to the lender, who relies on complete and accurate information to make credit risk decisions.  Some lenders may not recognize accounts added by Boost because they consider the information incomplete.

5. Experian BOOST Re-Calculates Your Credit Score.

Credit scoring models are complicated and use a variety of information as part of the score calculation.  Some credit scores do not use utility accounts in their calculations. 

Once your utility accounts are included in your Experian credit report, any credit scoring model that values utility accounts will reflect this information. VantageScore 3 values this information and is the second most popular score after FICO.

All newer versions of these credit scoring models continue to value utility accounts.  This means FICO Score 9 and VantageScore 4 value utility accounts.

Experian BOOST only affects your Experian credit report and credit scores generated by Experian.

6. Experian BOOST Updates Your Score Regularly

Every month Experian BOOST will review your checking account looking for new payment transactions for your utility accounts. It updates your credit report to reflect this information.

7. You Can Delete Accounts

If, for any reason, you no longer want your utility account(s) reported to your credit report, you can delete the account from Boost. Boost will stop searching for the account you delete.

If you no longer want Experian BOOST logging into your online bank account for any reason, you must delete the service from your Experian Profile altogether.

If you change your online bank account log-in credentials, don’t forget to change the same information in Experian BOOST.

Experian BOOST can help you build your credit record with phone and utility payments… and it’s absolutely free!

Try Experian BOOST Now!

Pros & Cons

Experian BOOST can be an effective way to help your credit. That doesn’t mean it’s the right move for everyone.

Pros

• It’s free.
• Adding more positive information to your Experian credit report can have a very positive impact if your credit report has very few accounts.
• Experian claims the average credit score improvement is 14 points. That could make a big difference for some people, especially if you cross over one of the major score thresholds from “poor” to “fair” and from “fair” to “good.”
• If Experian Boost detects rent payments, it will add those to your credit score automatically.
• If you have late payments, it won’t hurt your credit score since Experian doesn’t know about your late payments. Since they won’t be included in your credit report, they can’t affect your credit score.

Cons

• You have to give Experian access to your online checking account.  This is a non-starter for some people who are concerned about the security of their checking accounts.
• You have to pay all of your utility bills from your online checking account.  This is the only way Experian BOOST can scan your checking account to look to payments to utility companies.  This means you can’t use a credit card to pay your bill and earn reward points.
• It only works for people who already have a credit file.
• Because Experian BOOST only reports positive payments, some lenders may not use these accounts when they calculate your credit score.
• Experian BOOST only helps your Experian score.  It won’t help your scores at the two other major credit bureaus, TransUnion and Equifax.

Experian BOOST works best for people with thin credit files. If you have 20 years of payment history, have owned multiple credit cards, and had a car loan and home loan, adding proof of utility payments will not have the impact that it would have for someone with a thin credit file.

Does Experian Boost Work?

Now let’s talk turkey. Does it actually work?  The answer is yes!

But how much does it really help?

It depends on your starting credit score. The average consumer saw their credit score go up 14 points. If your credit is 579 or less, you could see an even bigger increase. Eighty-six percent of people in this range saw an average increase of 21 points.

Considering how easy it is, that’s a significant increase.

Like most credit-building tools, Experian Boost will be most effective if you have a thin credit file. It’s a useful tool for people who don’t have many records in their credit files or those who are just beginning to build credit.

Is Experian BOOST Legal?

You might wonder if all of this is legal. Can Experian expect you to give them access to your bank history so they can see your payment records?

Rest assured that Boost is 100% legal. The service is optional.  You do not have to participate.  As for their access to your records, that’s Experian’s entire business model. They are a consumer reporting agency.  Every time a credit card company or lender has sent Experian information about you, you have given them permission to do so (probably in the fine print when applying for a new credit card or loan, which few of us ever read).

Is Experian BOOST Safe?

Anytime you’re dealing with your finances, you want to take precautions. (Identity theft is real!)

Experian BOOST is safe. The system uses use 256-bit SSL encryption, which is government-level security.

Experian will review your bank records to find qualifying payments made to utility and phone companies. You will have to give Experian access to your account.

They’re limited to read-only access. That means they don’t store your login information and can’t make any changes to your account.

Experian BOOST Support

Experian BOOST is easy to use. Visit Experian.com and click “Sign In” in the upper right corner to log in.

The service is free, but they ask you to upgrade each time. To access your account, just click the option that says “No, Keep My Current Membership.”

Navigating to Experian BOOST is easy. Click the menu button and select “Experian Boost” under the “Reports & Scores” section. If you hit a snag, you can call customer support at 866-617-1894.

It helps to have your Member ID number when you call. You can find it by clicking the menu button and then going to your profile.

If you want to cancel your account, it’s easy to do with the automated phone system.

Experian BOOST can help you build your credit record with phone and utility payments… and it’s absolutely free!

Try Experian BOOST Now!

Other Ways to Add Payments to Your Credit Report

There are several other systems that let you add regular payments to your credit report.

Experian RentBureau adds rent payments to your Experian credit report. It’s free and easy to use. Your landlord will have to be willing to participate.

Rent reporting services like Rent Reporters, Boom, and LevelCredit will report your rent payments to the three credit bureaus. You will have to pay a fee to use these services but your landlord doesn’t have to agree to participate.

eCredable Lift is a service similar to Experian BOOST but run by TransUnion. While Experian BOOST is free there’s a fee to use eCredable Lift. Using both Experian BOOST and eCredable Lift will place your utility payment records on two of your three credit reports.

These services have limitations. The change in your credit score won’t be dramatic, and the payments may not show up on all of your credit reports.

FAQs:

What bills qualify for Experian BOOST?

Here are the bills that qualify for Experian BOOST:
1. utility bills
2. cable bills
3. cell phone payments
4. streaming service payments

How do I add bills to Experian BOOST?

You can add your bills to Experian BOOST by following these three steps:
1. Connect your bank account
2. Experian BOOST automatically finds eligible accounts
3. Pick accounts you want to include in your Experian credit report

How much does Experian BOOST cost?

Experian BOOST is free of charge for everybody who signs up as it is created to help as many people as possible.

How does Experian boost your credit score?

Experian BOOST helps increase your credit score by adding more positive information to your Experian credit report.

Can Experian BOOST hurt your credit?

Using Experian BOOST will never cause your credit score to fall; but, while linked, your score may fall for the typical reasons that credit scores fall, such as missing a payment or making a late payment.

The post Experian BOOST™ Review: The Pros & Cons of Boost (2024) appeared first on FinMasters.

Prequalify for a Personal Loan

Check your personal loan rates by answering a few questions. It only takes two minutes and has no impact on your credit score.

Get Started

Who Is BadCreditLoans.com?

BadCreditLoans.com started in 1998 by bringing together traditional lenders, peer-to-peer lending networks and tribal loans (from Native American Indian Funds). 

Today, they have grown to offer personal and installment loans across the United States to all credit types.  

They are not an actual lender but provide the platform for borrowers with bad credit or good to find the best rates by receiving multiple offers from different banks or lenders.

They offer traditional personal loans, personal installment loans, and peer-to-peer loans which may be funded by individuals or companies.

What Makes Them Different?

BadCreditLoans is unique in that it offers a robust platform for peer-to-peer borrowing and access to tribal loans. 

Tribal loans offer the opportunity for people who are self-employed or have a varied credit history to qualify for personal loans that they may not qualify for with a traditional lender.

Keep in mind that tribal loans are funded from sovereign native American lands and do not always have to meet state APR maximums.

They have relationships with a wide variety of banks and lenders which allows them to offer personal loans to people with bad credit, no credit, or limited credit.

Even if you have bankruptcies, repossessions, and judgments, BadCreditLoans may have a lender willing to lend money.

They also offer you the ability to apply and complete the entire loan process from your mobile phone on their BadCreditLoans app. 

How Does BadCreditLoans Work?

BadCreditLoans have one of the easiest platforms to use and it only takes about 30 seconds to find your best rate. Here’s how it works:

1. Find Your Rate

The first thing you do is go to their website and fill out the short form on their home page. It takes about 1 – 2 minutes to enter your information.

You need to provide basic information and financial income, as well as the amount of the personal loan you are looking to apply for.

BadCreditLoans.com doesn’t check your credit score to get lender offers, they only do a soft credit check. This means you get to see what rates you can qualify for without the worry of it affecting your credit. 

2. Compare Your Options

Once you put your information in and submit the form you will be taken to a dashboard.

This dashboard will have multiple pre-approval offers from different lenders.

Keep in mind, these are Pre-Approvals and your actual approval is not guaranteed; however, you will get to see your actual pre-qualified rates. The rates you see are usually very accurate as long as you can verify your information and nothing changes on your credit report. 

3. Apply For Your Personal Loan

Once you pick a lender, it’s time for you to apply. During the application process, you’ll get asked more in-depth questions about your use of the loan, your financial history, and the lender will run a credit check.

Once this step is done the lender will work with you directly to finalize all of the loan details.

Note: This all happens on the BadCreditLoans.com website. 

What Can You Use BadCreditLoans For?

There are several reasons you may need a personal loan for. Here are some of the things you can use BadCreditLoans for:

• Debt consolidation
• Major purchases
• Home improvements
• Medical expenses
• Moving/relocation
• Vacating
• Starting a business
• Education

Eligibility

In order to be eligible for BadCreditLoans you must meet the below personal loan requirements:

• Be a U.S. Citizen or Permanent Resident
• You are at least 18 years old
• Have a regular income, either from full-time employment, self-employment, or disability or Social Security benefits
• Have a checking account in your name
• Provide work and home telephone numbers
• Provide a valid email address

Before filling out the online form make sure you have the below information ready:

• Date of birth
• How much do you want to borrow?
• What do you plan to use the money for?

Loan Terms

Since BadCreditLoans.com lets you see offers from multiple lenders, we wanted to show you the absolute minimum and maximum you can be offered. Actual rates and terms will change by lender.

• Loan Amount Range: $500 – $10,000
• APR Range: Varies by Lender (5.99% to 35.99% APR* Estimation)
• Fees: Origination, Late Payment, and NSF fees all vary by lender
• Prepayment Penalties: Varies by lender
• Loan Terms: 3 to 72 months
• Payments Directly To Creditors: Varies by lender

Keep in mind that if you have a lower credit score you will be charged higher APR interest rates because, statistically, you are a higher risk to default.

 Need more options? Check out our reviews of other online lenders.

BadCreditLoans Customer Reviews

BadCreditLoans has a D- rating on BBB, but they only have two complaints in the past three years. 

BadCreditLoans has an average rating of 2.7 on Trustpilot. Reviews from their customers predominantly praise the platform’s ease of use and their excellent customer service team for their friendliness and ability to resolve problems. 

Customers also appreciate that BadCreditLoans are available to people with horrible credit, no credit, limited credit, bad credit and fair credit.

Many customers praised the speed at which they received larger loans for home projects and emergency needs.

On the negative side, most customers are very concerned about giving out their personal information to a company that will then share their information with multiple lenders.

This is a valid concern and something you should take into account whenever you choose to use a loan matching service.

What to Do After You Get a Loan

It feels great getting approved for something, no matter what it is, you feel like you have just won something. But, now that you have been approved, there are some things you should be doing with your accounts.

Make On-Time Payments

I am sure you are tired of seeing everyone saying “on-time payments”. But it is super important and is one of the largest factors in helping grow your credit score.

Of course, you probably didn’t obtain this loan for building your credit.

However, you still need to be mindful that this product can harm your credit if you don’t manage it correctly.

No matter what, avoid late payments.

Pay Back The Loan ASAP

Along with making on-time payments, you should definitely pay this loan off as soon as possible.

Large personal loans tend to linger when you only pay the minimum. While this does keep more cash in your pocket in the initial phase, eventually you end up spending thousands of more dollars in interest payments.

Getting your credit utilization ratio below 30% will also be great for helping your credit score grow.

The post BadCreditLoans.com Review 2024: Are They Legit? appeared first on FinMasters.

Every great investor searches for new and effective investment opportunities to fulfill their needs. One of the best ways to do so is by utilizing an efficient and essential toolkit. It should be one that offers modern stock screeners, market information, insider trading data, and a lot more.

If you have visited our site before, then you would likely have seen our other stock toolkit and software reviews. While those programs are fantastic, they are paid services. So, what about free options?

With that, the best option for you would be Wallmine.

It’s up-to-date and more sufficient for today’s market, compared to the old-fashioned, pricey, and inflexible tools used to track investments.

What is Wallmine?

This portion of our Wallmine review talks about what the service is all about. It also provides you with information on how it can help investors manage their financial markets.

Wallmine was founded in the year 2018 to help anyone acquire insights and understand overflowing data from the stock market. The service combines their financial expertise with technical knowledge to provide a modern and quick alternative that’s more cost-efficient.

Aside from these, the tool also allows you to track, record, and manage all your investments.

Wallmine Review – What can it Offer?

Free Vs. Premium

Generally, this investor toolkit is a free service that provides top-notch and quality assistance for all. However, you can also opt for the premium service if necessary.

But the thing is, the free version of Wallmine is already as effective and efficient as is. With that, you’ll be able to do everything and have all the elements you’ll require to manage your investments adequately.

Tools such as the following are all free for everyone’s convenience:

• Real-time news
• Portfolio Tracking
• Screening
• Charts
• Fundamentals
• Alerts
• Insider Trading Analysis
• Report Annotations
• Earnings
• Financials
• Dividend Statistics

When it comes to the premium service, it features all the elements present from the free service of Wallmine. However, it has a few additions to it such as the following:

• Tracking Unlimited Portfolios
• Full-Text Search SEC Filings
• Advanced Screening
• Extracting Screening Financials and Results
• Retaining the Privacy of Document Annotations and Highlights

Key Features   

Notifications

Wallmine updates you on everything that you consider important. Whether it’s heightened news coverage, approaching ex-dividend dates, new SEC filing, or even price movements, Wallmine has you covered.

Efficient Portfolio Tracking

With Wallmine, you’ll stay up to date with all your ETFs, stocks, and mutual funds in one convenient portfolio.

Institutional-Grade Information and News

They have a useful and highly informative newsletter that is provided on a daily basis. Not only that, but Wallmine has immediately-sourced Thomson Reuters details to keep everyone updated about important companies and groups.

Excellent Stock Screening Services

The Wallmine toolkit can immediately scan the market for any profitable investment. This is done via alerts, customized screens, as well as insightful visualizations.

Filter Stocks via Contextual Visualizations

Wallmine offers filter stocks based on a plethora of criteria to assist you in searching for the next move. Here, you and every other user can set and manage your favorite alerts and screens. It will help notify and alert you of new company matches based on your criteria.

Skipping on Manual Data Input

You can skip on manual data input then extract identical tables from earlier financial reports for direct correlation. The toolkit offers machine learning algorithms that everyone can utilize to determine the most vital and significant terms.

Full-Text and Thorough Searches

With Wallmine, you can easily and immediately save links to a specific table, sentence, or figure in any company filing. Aside from that, you’ll also have the ability to share all your balance sheet analysis and evaluations with others. If not, you can simply keep them for your own records.

Easily and Effectively Combine Historical Tables

With Wallmine, you can easily add comments and tags whenever necessary. To make things more convenient, you can bookmark the most common and recent search queries that you’ve made. Or, you can download your various researches then utilize them offline whenever you need them. 

Receive Filing Notifications and Various Alerts

You can immediately receive notifications in advance of the newest SEC filings. It’s also possible for you to receive these alerts as soon as they get published. If you save a specific search, Wallmine can send you a notification.

Collaborate with Ease

With the toolkit, you can simply add tags and comments whenever necessary. If you have common search queries, you can conveniently bookmark them then download your research to utilize online.

Risk-Free Monthly Subscription

When Wallmine assists you when making a single trade, it will be worth the price. That’s because Wallmine has a risk-free monthly subscription that you can take advantage of.

Wallmine’s Advantages

Generally, Wallmine understands the needs of every investor. With that, they believe that everybody should have appropriate access to the best tools around, as well as quality information.

Aside from these quality advantages and benefits, Wallmine received excellent optimizations after the toolkit’s major update. These improvements include more personalized notifications such as price movements, earnings, and increased news coverage. All these are based on your settings and activities.

The best feature would have to be the data extraction a business’s SEC filings. Never has it been easier to quickly filter through a company’s annual report. Important paragraphs are highlighted, with a small text summary on the right hand side. While not exactly an annual report, a great example to check out would be WeWork’s S-1 filing. 

Wallmine’s Limitations

What’s great about Wallmine is that it’s packed with a ton of free tools and services. Though do remember that despite its efficiency, it still comes with a few limitations. However, these are common even in the most top-notch and well-designed toolkits and applications around.

With that, the only limitation to this financial terminal is that the free plan can only track up to two portfolios. Aside from that, these two portfolios each have up to ten holdings in total.

Despite this, the watchlist tracking feature of Wallmine is unlimited, which is great anyway.

Interested in Wallmine?

Wallmine is an excellent tool to use if you want to get notifications on stock price changes significantly. Every tool is useful, and the best thing is that most of these are available for free. Although you can enjoy more tools with a premium account, the free tools are already more than enough.

The dashboard is also a great feature if you want to keep track of upcoming events. Additionally, Wallmine provides quotes, stock news, and analysis which are essential for making investments.

To sum up our Wallmine review, it’s a site that we highly recommend. It’s the perfect alternative tool for Google Finance or Yahoo Finance, plus it has an impressive set of features.

Sign up for Wallmine today!

The post Wallmine Review 2024: The Best Free Investment Toolkit appeared first on FinMasters.

What Is Finviz?

Finviz is a comprehensive toolbox for investors and traders with a focus on US markets. This stock market portal offers many features, from stock screeners news feeds, portfolio management, stock charts, and more.

Finviz’s mission is to provide leading financial research, analysis, and visualization to its users.

Given the amount of information available, the website is remarkably easy to use. Although it looks dated from a user interface perspective, it loads quite fast, which is great if you’re constantly trying to find information to act on.

Finviz’s stock screener is one of the most popular screeners available today. In fact, Finviz is used extensively by beginner and professional traders, including investment firms.

Who Uses Finviz?

I know it sounds like a cliche, but Finviz can indeed be used by both beginners and experienced investors and traders. There are several reasons for this.

Finviz’s feature set includes both fundamentals and technical indicators. That means it does cater to a large audience.

It’s screener, for example, allows us to look for companies that meet certain criteria. Experienced traders might use it to search for companies that are about to make a technical move. For example, they could look for oversold stocks based on their RSI.

Experienced investors might also use its insider feature, for example, which tracks stock movements from executives at publicly listed companies. This might give them an indication if they are committed to the business by purchasing more stock or simply dumping their stock allocations and therefore give us a warning signal.

Furthermore, novice investors might use it to track their portfolios and check the news on their favorite stocks.

As per Finviz’s page, the tool is also used by professional investment bankers at reputable institutions such as Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, among others.

What Do I Get With Finviz’s Free Tier?

One thing that’s immediately obvious when browsing the free version of Finviz is that there are ads. That said, there are only a few, and it doesn’t really impact the experience that much.

It’s entirely understandable that they chose to include ads, as it’s hard to monetise such a comprehensive set of free features.

Below, we will go into detail on all the free features available on Finviz for free.

Homepage

The homepage on Finviz, although crowded, gives us a sneak peek of a few very interesting features.

It shows how major indices such as the DOW are performing. Below that, it shows the top gainers and losers of the day.

If you look closely, it shows a list of stocks where Finviz detected a technical signal worth noting. I find this feature fabulous, as it saves lots of time when looking for stocks with the right technical setup for a trade.

There’s a small map to the right with the several industries and sectors in the S&P 500 index. This vizualisation is a great way to assess how the markets are behaving.

There are a few more bits and pieces, but this is really just an entry point to more detailed features in Finviz.

Screener

This is by far one of the best stock screeners out there. It’s incredibly fast and powerful, and the different views over the results make it an invaluable tool for any serious trader or investor.

There are three types of filters: descriptive, fundamental and technical.

Descriptive Filters

The descriptive filters are the basic set of filters around exchanges, market cap, dividend yield, industry, country, etc. They are the first ones we use to narrow down the results page.

Fundamental Filters

The fundamentals’ filters go into detail about financials and derived ratios. It allows investors to filter tickers based on the basic P/E ratio, sales growth, margins, EPS growth and so forth. It also allows us to filter by insider and institutional ownership, and other metrics of importance to those doing fundamental analysis.

Technical Filters

Finally, there are also technical filters available. The majority of these filters are well known and include moving averages, RSI, volatility, and percentage change. However, some other filters are quite unique and powerful.

These include candlesticks and patterns.

It is possible to look for stocks with a known candlestick like a doji and inverted hammer, or even use your own custom candlesticks for Elite users.

Results Visualisation

Once we filter the stocks by any of the filters above, we can decide how we want to visualize the results.

Here, we can choose to see them in a number of ways by choosing one of the following tabs:

• Overview – this displays very basic information about each ticker, such as name, industry, sector and market cap;
• Valuation – this tab displays mostly derived ratios about each ticker, such as P/E and PEG ratios;
• Financial – this tab shows the most important financial indicators for each ticker, if available, such as gross margins, dividend yield, and profit margins;
• Ownership – in this tab, we can look for details on the number of outstanding shares, institutional ownership, and short ratio;
• Performance – it offers a good overview of the past performance of each ticker, together with some volatility and volume information;
• Technical – many of the raw technical indicators are shown on this tab, including 20, 50 and 200-day simple moving averages, 52-week lows/highs and RSI;
• Charts – if you’re looking for technical patterns, then this tab is for you. With it, you can quickly glance over the chats of all the tickers that match your search criteria in order to spot interesting trades. For the trained eye, this is a great way to analyze a large number of tickers and filter down to only a few tradable names;
• Ticker – a visual representation of tickers based on their performance. Hovering over each ticker shows a small chart with more detail;
• Basic – in this view, we see both a technical chart and a small table with fundamentals, both side-by-side, for each ticker;
• TA – similar to the view above, where we see a technical chart and a small table with technicals side-by-side, for each ticker;
• News – this view contains the same information as the Basic tab, plus specific news for each of the tickers;
• Snapshot – besides the information in the News view, this view also includes a description of the ticker and insider trading information;
• Custom – in this view, you can customize what you want to see and save the view for future uses.

As you can see, this is indeed a very powerful screener. The added search based on technical patterns and candles makes it a very valuable tool for traders.

News

The news section is split between news and blog posts. Both are from curated sources, which guarantees a certain degree of quality.

Although in this section you will find news for every company, you can also see news for a specific company when you search for it.

If you search for a stock like Apple (use its ticker AAPL in the search bar), you will see, among other things, news specific to Apple. This is great because you can keep track of what’s happening with the stocks you care about.

Maps

This is a wonderful feature in Finviz. Maps are a high-level visualization that shows the price change of stocks per sector and industry. Furthermore, the size of each box represents the market capitalization of those stocks, sectors, and industries relative to one another.

The image above is a representation of the S&P 500 index. Besides that, we can also see a World map with foreign ADR stocks listed on NYSE, NASDAQ and AMEX.

It is also possible to see the same map visualization with ETFs. In this case, instead of market cap, the size represents a 3-month average dollar volume.

Besides the map view, you can also change to a bubbles view, which plots the individual stocks by sector and their change over time. There are many filters on this chart, to narrow down the view.

I use this visualisation to understand how sectors are performing over time. This information is important to understand if markets are displaying weakness or strength as a whole.

Groups

Following on from maps, groups provide another holistic view of stocks by sector, market cap or industry. When looking at individual stocks and ETFs, it’s important to consider how their group is performing. That allows us to understand where assets are positioned in relation to their peers.

This view allows us to compare the valuation, performance and even charts of groups of stocks.

As an example, you can compare P/E ratios of all S&P500 sectors. Furthermore, you can see the performance of the different sectors over different periods of time.

This visualisation is extremely helpful to assess current market conditions across different industries and sectors, in order to understand trends in the markets.

It also allows us to drill down into individual stocks and ETFs by linking directly to the stock screener, activating the relevant filters.

Portfolio

Another interesting feature in Finviz is the Portfolio tool. With this tool, investors can build their portfolio by inserting which stocks and ETFs they bought or sold, when that happened and at what price.

Once we input that data, Finviz will keep track of our overall P&L and also individual changes in every ticker we add to our portfolio.

On top of that, Finviz will also display context-specific news for all tickers in our porfolio, grouped by day. This is a great way to keep track of important news related to the stocks and ETFs we purchase.

Insider

The insider trading feature keeps track of transactions executed by executives and directors at publicly listed companies.

This is a great way to assess how executives perceive their own companies’ stock. If too many executives at a company are selling their own stock in large proportions, that could be interpreted as a negative sign. However, if they are actually purchasing more stock, that could be seen as a bullish indicator.

As you can see above, Finviz uses color-coding to show which transactions are a sell transaction (in red), which ones are a buy transaction (in green), and which ones are an exercise in options (white).

This is a generic view, though. It includes all transactions regardless of the company. For insider movement on particular stocks, you can see that information when you click or search for a stock and go into the stock page. More details on that below.

Futures, Forex & Crypto

I have grouped these 3 categories because of their similarities in terms of interface. Let’s explore the 3.

The Futures feature shows a number of prices and charts covering futures in indices, energy, bonds, softs, metals, meats, grains and currencies.

For each type of futures contract, we can see quotes, their relative performance, and individual charts, which are static on the free tier, but interactive in the Elite tier.

The same applies to Forex. Finviz tracks the most relevant currency pairs like EUR/USD, GBP/USD and Gold. The functionality available is the same as above: we can see the quotes, relative performance and individual charts.

Finally, Finviz also tracks the most relevant cryptocurrencies available. In this feature, we can follow the price of Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) against USD, EUR and BTC.

Search

We don’t normally go into too much detail as explaining the search functionality of tools. But with Finviz we feel we have to do it for one simple reason: Finviz’s search is incredibly fast. We can search a ticker, company name, or any particular profile and get an instantaneous list of results.

Clicking in a result gets us to the page of the profile we’re looking for instantaneously.

Assets Page

We can get to an asset page by either clicking on tickers throughout Finviz’s website or by searching for a ticker, company, or asset profile.

A profile page for a specific ticker includes a number of important data, which is tailored to the type of ticker you searched for.

Let’s go into detail about each section.

Technical Charts

The technical chart, which is static in the free version, but dynamic in the Elite tier.

For users in the Elite tier, this chart can be customized by type (candle, line, etc), the time frame can be changed and we can create alerts. It is also possible to change settings and publish custom charts.

Fundamentals

Fundamental data, which is a comprehensive table displaying all sorts of fundamentals for the company, some of which are color-coded so quickly glance at the health of certain indicators.

It is also possible to access public financial statements for each ticker, which is a basic link to MarketWatch.

Analysts Rating

Another key piece of information that Finviz displays are a sorted list of analysts’ ratings for the profile page you’re on.

As you can see above, the list is sorted by date and it includes the recommendation of a number of analysts, their name and the price target.

Although the list is static and doesn’t provide any analytics on top, it’s quite useful to determine current market sentiment.

Tailored News and Social Media Sentiment

Furthermore, there’s a list of news specific to the ticker we are on, sorted by date, from reputable news sources.

This is a great way to keep yourself up-to-date with what’s been written about this specific asset without all of the noise of generic news services.

Alongside it, it’s possible to see what other traders and investors are talking about on Stocktwits, which is a twitter-like social media service for markets.

Insider Trading

Finally, if you’re on a stock page, you will be able to see a list of insider trading according to public information available in the SEC filings. This is a good way to assess how top executives think of their stock by monitoring their sales and purchases of stock for the company they run.

What Do I Get With Finviz’s Elite Tier?

By now, you’re familiar with all the free features that Finviz offers. The list is huge, but make no mistake – Finviz’s strength lies with its Elite tier.

Besides a much better ad-free layout, Finviz Elite brings a large number of premium features that are a must for anyone that trades on a daily basis for a living.

Realtime Data and Extended Hours

When you trade for a living, access to real-time data is key. With Finviz Elite, you get access to real-time data for US markets.

That is visible in the homepage, the maps, charts, stock quote and the stock screener.

Besides, there is also access to extended hours sessions from 8:00AM, for those trading during extended hours.

Advanced Charts

In Finviz’s free tier, the charts are not interactive. In fact, they are simple pictures that convey some details, but are unusable for traders.

With Finviz Elite, charts are interactive and provide charting possibilities that are necessary for performing deep technical analysis.

For example, we have access to Intraday charts, indicators, overlays, drawing tools and performance comparison charts.

Backtests

Another important aspect of trading is to create and evaluate trading strategies before applying them with real money.

Finviz Elite allows us to backtest trading strategies that we can build from their 100+ indicators and 15+ years of historical data.

Correlations

One feature that’s not often seen is the ability to search for correlated or inversely correlated stocks.

This can be used to diversify risk, buy finding inversely correlated stocks, or alternate your positions within your portfolio.

Finviz features proprietary correlation algorithms optimized for financial markets.

Advanced Screener

On top of the many features available on Finviz’s stock screener, with the Elite plan we have access to even more features.

Some of those include the ability to export data, which is neat. Furthermore, we have access to advanced charts, custom filters and finally a statistics view.

With these features, the screener becomes even more powerful than in the free version.

Alerts and Notifications

Finally, one key feature for traders is the ability to receive alerts and notifications. This feature is included in the Elite plan.

We can get instant e-mail notifications for individual stocks and portfolios. For alerts, they are triggered by a number of events, including price, news, portfolio updates and ratings. 

On top of that, we can receive alerts on new stock tickers that fit in a screener criteria.

This feature is key in keeping on top of important pieces of information.

What Could Be Better in Finviz?

So far, we’ve looked into the many features Finviz includes in their product. But what is missing? And what could be better?

Let’s explore a few areas in which Finviz could improve.

Markets

If you’re looking for extensive market coverage, then you will be disappointed. Finviz only covers US markets, so if you’re looking for European or Asian data, you’re out of luck.

They do cover foreign companies, just as long as they trade in US markets. This might be ok for you, if you’re focused on US stocks, but traders looking for exposure to other markets will have to look for alternatives.

Futures

If you are expecting to trade futures, Finviz might not be the right platform for you. Finviz’s futures data has a 20 minute delay, which means you don’t get real-time information to assist you on your trades.

If you only use futures data to gage market sentiment, this might be enough for you. However, if you expect to make money from trading futures, this platform isn’t ideal.

Historical Data

Although Finviz provides historical data that goes back 16 years, that might not be enough if you’re backtesting a particular trading strategy that needs data from a specific period in time.

That said, for the majority of traders, 16 years of historical data is more than enough. If you’re looking to battle-test a trading strategy during the 2000 dot-comm bubble, you’re out of luck.

ETFs

I found it disappointing that there’s little information on ETFs in Finviz. It’s clearly tailored to stocks and most stock tickers are enhanced with many pieces of valuable information.

However, ETFs have very little details shown. We can’t see their holdings, for example, which is a shame.

Mobile

Finviz has no mobile app. On top of that, the website isn’t mobile friendly. This makes the experience of using Finviz on the go quite poor.

That said, most traders do run their business from desktop or laptop computers. But there’s always that time that we’re on the go and it would be useful to access the platform from a mobile device.

Visuals

Finally, although the looks aren’t everything, it’s quite obvious that Finviz could do with a face lift! The website looks old and dated. 

When compared with websites such as TradingView and TrendSpider, it doesn’t look as good. It’s fast, which is an advantage, but I think this is something Finviz should perhaps invest a little bit more into.

Finviz Pricing

The pricing model used by Finviz is quite simple. There are basically two plans to choose from: a free plan and a paid-for plan called Elite.

Within the paid-for plan Elite, you can choose to either pay monthly or annually. The annual subscription fee costs $299.50 and the monthly fee costs $39.50 per month.

As you can see, the annual subscription fee is much more appealing as it is $174.50 cheaper than the monthly one.

Finviz only accepts payments through Paypal. The reason for that is to make sure our credit card and personal information is as secure as possible.

Finally, there are no trial plans available, but the free version gives you access to most features anyway. The key differences between the plans are analysed in this blog post, but the most significant is to do with access to real-time data.

That means you can take your time analyzing the tool in their free plan until you’re ready to commit to the Elite plan.

Finviz Review – Final Thoughts

Up until now, Finviz has been a critical tool for us at FinMasters. In particular, it’s hard to find a better stock screener out there. Given its relatively cheap price compared to the value it yields, it’s a no brainer, and we recommend going for the Elite plan and unlock those extra features.

FAQs

Here are a number of FAQs that summarize some of the points made throughout this article.

Finviz Review

Our rating: 4.3/5

Visit Website

The post Finviz Review: A 2024 Walkthrough of Elite and Free Plans appeared first on FinMasters.

I have recently come across a new (free) investing research platform, WallStreetZen. WallStreetZen is a newer platform, but I think it has some nice properties, so I wanted to share and provide a comprehensive review for users.

Here is my WallStreetZen review. I’ll go over what makes WallStreetZen a unique service and who this service is for. Enjoy!

What Is WallStreetZen?

WallStreetZen is the freshest stock research platform that isn’t all data. It’s a tool that aids everyone in interpreting necessary data. Their goal is to assist part-time investors like yourself to establish an improved long-term investment decision.

WallStreetZen was established because its founders became disappointed with the current stock research sites. Because of this, they aimed to create a better and more optimized stock analysis experience. It’s particularly for serious investors who want to further understand stocks they’re investing in, but aren’t financial experts.

Generally, the idea behind this website for stock research is simple. A lot of stock research tools are made by finance experts for finance professionals. This results in a ton of dense tables packed with numbers and financial ratios.

The thing is, they don’t provide you with the necessary contexts to better understand the data. But with WallStreetZen, you’ll definitely get what you need.

WallStreetZen Review – What Can It Offer?

WallStreetZen isn’t your typical stock research platform. It takes on a different approach by not just showing you financial data. It helps you interpret these while comprehending the context.

This is done with beautiful graphics and charts. You won’t find any detailed line item breakdowns of a financial statement here, but what you will find are some detailed graphics that help put those financial statements into perspective. Check our AAPL’s balance sheet below.

While you won’t get the details, these graphics provide a great overview and sense of overall knowledge of the company’s data.

Intrinsic Visualizations for Vital Context

WallStreetZen makes use of intuitive data visuals together with automated stock analysis. These help you further grasp the stock’s fundamentals in just a few minutes. You don’t need any finance background or expertise to understand these.

Get immediate snapshots of historical trends, as well as the industry’s benchmarks that you’ve been looking for. And that’s without having to spend so many hours looking into tables.

Stock Screener (Free)

You can utilize their free stock screener to search for investing opportunities. These searches are tailored to your personalized filters to give you only the details you need.

Stock screeners are also called share screeners or stock scanners. They’re a collection of stocks that allows you to set filters to see stock lists that meet your criteria.

WallStreetZen’s free stock screener application narrows down all the present stocks. These are based on concrete variables like revenue, market capitalization, earnings, revenue, operating income, profit margins, and vital financial ratios. The latter includes P/E ratios (price-to-earnings ratio), D/E (debt-to-equity ratios), ROEs (return on equities), and a lot more.

However, you should remember that qualitative factors aren’t things that you can readily screen in stock screeners. Some of these are the quality of the company’s products, long-term business strategies, disruptive technologies, and the like. To achieve these, you’ll need to learn these as part of your general stock research process.

While WallStreetZen’s screener is pretty basic, it is easy to navigate and understand.

WallStreetZen’s Advantages

With WallStreetZen, you can look into a company that you want to research and focus on. The site will take you to a page with information that includes company details, stock price, revenue, market capitalization, and price-to-earnings ratios. Take a look at Apple (AAPL) again:

WallStreetZen shines when it comes to providing easy and understandable analysis. Each of the stocks features a Zen Score that determines and evaluates each company according to these factors.

• Forecast
• Valuation
• Performance
• Dividends
• Financials

As you can see above, AAPL’s valuation score is currently low. This is because the stock price has been performing incredibly over the past year, surpassing its fundamentals. That’s also where you will see a high score for performance.

Each page even combines news articles that cite the company. This will let you read about current happenings and news that can influence the company’s stock price.

What’s great about WallStreetZen is that it’s entirely free to use. So, it’s an excellent addition for you and every investor’s research collection.

Objective Analysis with No Hidden Agenda

Financial models that WallStreetZen uses do not have hidden agendas or personal biases. They provide the same equal quantitative analysis to each stock that’s listed.

Automated Due Diligence Does the Work for You

What’s great is that you don’t need to run DCF models and establish spreadsheets for tracking changes. WallStreetZen does automated due diligence on the newest financial data. Then, it provides you with all the necessary results in simple, one-lined details.

Only the Essentials

Instead of packing each page until it reaches data overload, they choose vital metrics that each investor should focus on. Also, they assist you in visualizing the industry and historical context behind each number.

Minimalist, Clean, and Sleek

WallStreetZen cares about giving everyone a great user experience. So, they made things clean, sleek, minimal, and user-friendly.

This is perfect for investors who aren’t into the clunky and cramped interfaces of classic brokerages. Plus, WallStreetZen does this for analysis and stock research websites too.

Compared to most stock research sites packed and cluttered with excessive data, WallStreetZen takes on a minimalist approach. Everything’s simple and clean, allowing you to focus on all the data you need to make excellent investing decisions.

WallStreetZen Review: Limitations

It’s hard to knock a free service. The only thing I can think of is just be aware that WallStreetZen is in beta mode. Things could change if you are used to a specific format.

But all its distinct features and focus on user experience make it the most indispensable and reliable stock research site. It’s best for investors who want stock analysis with less noise and more insight.

Is WallStreetZen for You?

If you’re new to fundamental analyses, then you can take advantage of WallStreetZen for guidance and education. This is a great way to learn as you practice the necessary fundamental analysis skills.

Overall, this is a great free resource geared for beginner investors who don’t desire to analyze annual reports or financial statements. The graphs and charts are beautifully crafted and easy to read. The stock screener is basic, but highly functional.

Experienced investors who enjoy the data and details will likely need to look elsewhere. Services like Stock Rover or Finbox are some great options for those that desire an in depth experience.

Check out the rest of our reviews to find the best service that fits your investment style and budget.

Interested in WallStreetZen?

Now that you’ve finished reading our WallStreetZen review, do you think it’s the stock research platform for you? If you’re planning to utilize WallStreetZen, you can easily check WallStreetZen’s free stock screener app.

The post WallStreetZen Review 2024: A Free and Sleek Data Platform appeared first on FinMasters.

Luckily, there’s one effective way to reach your objectives as an investor. You can do this with portfolio analysis and stock rating through a service called Stockopedia.

Today, we’ll focus on this specific tool to see what it has to offer. Also, we’re going to determine if it’s necessary for your needs. First, let’s learn more about what Stockopedia is.

What is Stockopedia?

Top Tier Research

Stockopedia is an online data and research platform that offers integral data related to shares. The online service began in the United Kingdom by Edward Page-Croft together with Dave Brickell. They both lived and worked in London, but they soon left the city to start their online business.

One of the service’s USPs is that anyone can reflect the investment system of investment managers. An example would be this: you can utilize a stock screener for highlighting all stocks categorized under the investment benchmark. The investment criteria that it falls under is the Zulu Principle established by the legendary investor, Jim Slater.

Stockopedia began to spread in the UK market. However, they are currently covering the primary stock markets around the world. It introduces a form of stock data that top-notch stockbrokers and hedge fund managers utilize in educational and straightforward ways. The good thing about this is that all their data and information comes from a reliable source – Thomson Reuters.

What Stockopedia Offer?

The StockRanks from Stockopedia

StockRanks is the only stock-rating system in the world with a design based on the principles of factor investing. What works well in the world of investment is generally a poorly kept secret.

On average, a collection of straightforward risk factors drive stock returns. The most powerful factors include the following.

“Quality” is the factor considered as a relatively significant trend, as well as the health of every company. For “Value”, it’s the competitiveness of the stock price related to its fundamentals. The “Momentum” is the strength of each stock’s earnings and price.

Stockopedia can rank on each stock in the market from 0 and 100 for each of the factors. Then, these are combined to the StockRank to be presented for each share in the market. To make things more convenient for everyone, all data is just a quick search away.

Access Stockopedia Wherever, Whenever

Stockopedia is a straightforward and convenient browser-based web app. As long as you have an internet connection, you can access Stockopedia wherever you are, whenever.

Stop Disregarding Opportunities

In just a few seconds, you can expand your investing environment to various sectors and countries. With Stockopedia’s easy-to-browse assortment that covers ten sectors & 52 industry groups, you can expand your portfolio better than ever.

It’s great that Stockopedia can cover over 35,000 stocks worldwide in places such as the UK. Other areas it covers includes North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. Plus, you can even select the coverage that suits your needs and preferences.

View Accurate Statements

With a total of eight years of tabled & chartered forecast essentials, you are allowed to eyeball long-term performances and operations at a glance. You can easily see all the important data an investor requires, and more. Stockopedia is a one stop shop to visualize a stock. It presents all the important ratios (P/E, P/B, PEG, ROA, etc) all in one convenient package. Additionally, you can view the company’s balance sheet, cash flows, and income statements for the past five years. 

Advantages of Stockopedia

Screening

When you utilize the screening function, you’re allowed to diminish the number of companies to a few. Only consider those you plan to invest in to avoid confusion in the process.

There are a lot of preloaded “Guru Screens” on the system. These generally reflect the principles of famous investors today. You can conveniently gather ideas about which ones are best since they display the necessary returns you need.

Valuable, Live Data Presented in a Simple Manner

When you find stocks you plan to look into further, simply click on the information page to access this. The bar graph that immediately appears displays how the elements of a company’s affairs have developed and expanded over time.

It’s possible to learn if dividends have increased continuously, then compare them with dividend covers or the earnings per share. Technically, it’s possible and an easy task to achieve. You only need to hover your mouse over each of the elements, and then they pop out for your reference.

With that, you’ll be able to see the Guru Screens that a stock passes at a specific time. For added convenience, you’ll get to view the Benjamin Graham value formula. Plus, you can also see other metrics displayed below the primary header.

Portfolio Bubble Charts

What’s excellent about Portfolio Bubble Charts is that you’re able to view how your choice of selections stack up. It is done by triangulating analysis created from financial data. This information summarizes their strength based on quality, momentum, and value. 

Since the charts are live, you can transfer the stocks you’ve bought once you’ve made investments. Save them to other portfolios then track the shares over time. If one of the stocks you got slides, you can immediately see it then cut out your losses. With that, you can readily take your cash to invest somewhere else.

Ebooks, Help & Forums

If you have a specific strategy for investing, such as value investing, it’s vital to have a sounding board around. It functions as a place for ideas to get an education and more information.

The forums and Ebooks that Stockopedia offers is efficiently helpful. It also comes with a live feature which is extremely efficient. When it comes to the forum, all questions are responded to without any issues. Plus, you’ll feel the adage that “No Question is a Stupid One”. So, you’ll end up asking more questions, and Stockopedia will continue to support everyone in this.

Are There Any Limitations to the Service?

Limited Financial Data

Unfortunately, Stockopedia only provides five years of financial statements. Other services offer at least ten years of data, so this is a pretty big downside. Personally, I like to at least look back on ten years of data to get the full picture of a company’s financial standing.

Expensive, But Worth It

Despite being quite pricey, Stockopedia is still a highly efficient service that does not have any negative limitations for use.

In the world of investing, drowning in tons of information is a common operational hazard. However, with Stockopedia, things are made easier and more convenient. The service does a fantastic job of providing complex data in a clear, straightforward, and accessible manner.

You’ll get everything you need in an easy-to-read format, avoiding any instance of confusion due to tons of information.

Is Stockopedia For You?

Quality Research

Overall, Stockopedia is the best online service for evaluating shares and investments such as ETFs, investment trusts, and more. Taking a look at the reviews from other users, all comments about Stockopedia are indeed positive. Even the beginners in the industry are raving about the service, which is a good response.

With that, Stockopedia is a service that’s highly recommendable. There highly intuitive platform and excellent features offer investors a great service to research their stocks and track their portfolios. We here at VVI have used their platform for a few months and have been delighted with the results; we hope you will too!

The post Stockopedia Review 2024: An Excellent Platform for Stock Research appeared first on FinMasters.

What Is a Credit Builder Loan?

A credit builder loan is a special type of loan that helps you build credit. It’s not used like a traditional loan, where you can use the loan proceeds to pay for something, then pay it back over time.

With a credit builder loan, you don’t actually get any money from the lender to start with. Instead, when you get the loan, Self will place the money into a savings account on your behalf. You’ll get loan bills like normal and have to make a payment each month.

Each payment you make will show up on your credit report and improve your credit score. However, just like any other loan, late payments or missed payments can damage your credit. It’s important to make sure you can make the monthly payments. If you don’t, your credit builder loan could wind up damaging your credit score.

How Does Self Work?

To get started with Self, you’ll first have to apply for a credit builder loan. You can customize your loan, choosing your desired monthly payment. Options start as low as $25 and go as high as $150. Your payment will affect the term of your loan, which ranges from one to two years.

Once you select the loan you’d like, Self will decide whether to approve your application. There’s no hard pull on your credit and you’re almost guaranteed to get approved since Self is holding your money and taking on almost no risk.

Each month, you’ll make your loan payment, which includes both principal and interest. Over time, your monthly payment will show up on your credit report and increase your credit score. Your payments will also reduce your loan balance.

Once you’ve fully repaid the loan, Self will release the proceeds of your loan to you. This makes a credit builder loan into a sort of forced saving plan that also helps you build your credit.

Keep in mind that your loan payments include interest, so you’ll wind up paying more than you receive at the end of the loan. For example, at the time of writing, Self states that if you choose a $35 monthly payment for a term of 24 months, you’ll get $724 at the end of the loan. However, 24 monthly payments of $35, plus the $9 startup fee total $849.

That means you’ve paid $125 for the service.

Features

There are a few important features of Self that are worth covering.

Reports to All Three Bureaus

There are three major credit bureaus in the United States: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.

Different lenders work with different bureaus to check customers’ credit scores. Different lenders also report account details to different bureaus.

Self reports your loan details to all three credit bureaus, which lets you improve your credit score with all three bureaus. That means that future lenders should see your improved score regardless of where they check it.

Close Your Account Early

A Self credit builder loan is a 12 or 24-month commitment. Like any other loan, if you miss payments or make late payments, that will hurt your credit score.

To help people avoid hurting their credit with a credit builder loan, Self offers the option to close your account early if you can’t keep up with the payments or no longer want the service. You can either pay the remaining balance of the loan or simply ask Self to close the account. This will incur a fee of $5 or less depending on your loan.

If you do this, Self will report the account as paid off early to the credit bureaus, which means you don’t have to worry about damaged credit due to a delinquent account.

Self Visa Credit Card

Once you’ve made three monthly payments toward your credit builder loan and have built up $100 or more in savings progress, Self will give you the option to apply for a secured credit card.

You can set the card’s credit limit, up to the total savings progress on your credit builder loan. Once you get the card, you use it like any other credit card, making purchases and paying them off each month.

This card gives you some access to the savings you’ve built through your loan, by letting you borrow against that balance. It also gives you another account to use to build your payment history.

The secured credit card provides a revolving credit line, which in combination with your credit builder loan will improve your credit mix and may help your credit. As with any credit card, you will need to make on-time payments and keep your credit utilization low to build credit.

Read our full review of the Self Visa Credit Card for more information about how this card works.

Pricing

A credit builder loan from Self isn’t free. Even though you get some of your money back at the end of the loan, some of your payments go toward fees and interest, which means you’ll pay more than you receive in the end.

The cost of a credit builder loan depends on the interest rate and fees of the loan. Rates can change regularly, but at the time of writing, the price breakdown looks like this.

If you want the cheapest option, the $48 monthly payment will cost just a bit more than half as much as the next cheapest credit builder loan. However, you should also consider the affordability of the monthly payment.

A longer term will help you build credit, You will accumulate credit history and the account will remain active longer.

Customer Reviews

Customer reviews for Self are mixed. Some customers have had great experiences while others have had significant issues. Many reviews say the service works, but costs too much.

One positive review from Google Play discusses the positive results.

This negative review from Trustpilot mentions that you might see a drop in your credit score. It also claims that the company has added inaccurate data to its credit report.

A middle-of-the-road review mentions that the product works, but is overly expensive.

Self Alternatives

Self is just one of many services available for people who want to improve their credit score. If you’re in the market for a credit builder loan, consider these alternatives.

Is a Self Credit Builder Loan Worth It?

A Self credit builder loan may be worth it to some people.

If your only goal is to build your credit, there are many other ways to do that without having to pay. For example, a student credit card is a good option for younger people. There are many ways to build credit for free.

Even people with damaged credit or who may not qualify for a student card can apply for a secured credit card. With a deposit of a few hundred dollars, you can get a fee-free secured card that you can use to build credit.

However, if you like the idea of having something that forces you to save money while you build credit, a Self credit builder loan may appeal to you. You’ll have to decide whether you’re willing to pay the fees. If you are, then Self can help you build a small amount of savings and improve your credit.

Verdict

A Self credit builder loan is one way that you can build your credit and set some money aside at the same time. While there are free alternatives that will help you build credit, the overall cost is low enough that you might be willing to pay it for the service.

All Credit Builder Accounts made by Lead Bank, Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender, Sunrise Banks, N.A. Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender or Atlantic Capital Bank, N.A. Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender. Subject to ID Verification. Individual borrowers must be a U.S. Citizen or permanent resident and at least 18 years old. Valid bank account and Social Security Number are required. All loans are subject to ID verification and consumer report review and approval. Results are not guaranteed. Improvement in your credit score is dependent on your specific situation and financial behavior. Failure to make monthly minimum payments by the payment due date each month may result in delinquent payment reporting to credit bureaus which may negatively impact your credit score. This product will not remove negative credit history from your credit report. All loans subject to approval. All Certificates of Deposit (CD) are deposited in Lead Banks, Member FDIC, Sunrise Banks, N.A., Member FDIC or Atlantic Capital Bank, N.A., Member FDIC.
The Self Visa® Credit Card is issued by Lead Bank, Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender.

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