TheStreet Review – A Stock News Platform and More

About TheStreet

TheStreet is primarily a stock news platform, although the site’s overwhelming nature and wide breadth can make it hard to figure out exactly what else the service is offering. In addition to financial news, TheStreet offers services ranging from analyst ratings and advice to how-to videos on basic trading concepts. Overall, the service is a useful resource and an excellent financial news curator, but may be trying to do so much that it is less than ideal for many traders. We recently reviewed Jim Cramer’s Action Alerts Plus and now we’re taking a look at some of the other services offered by TheStreet.

TheStreet Pricing Options

Access to most of TheStreet’s news and analysis is free and doesn’t require a login.

However, there are a variety of premium services that are under the umbrella of TheStreet’s platform but are otherwise not linked to the news and analysis platform. In addition, these premium services appear to compete with one another. For example, “Real Money” offers additional analysis from Jim Cramer, while “Top Stocks” offers similar analysis from Helene Meisler.

Each premium subscription must be purchased individually, as there is no way to purchase multiple premium subscriptions in a single package. Individual subscriptions range in price from $1 per week to $16 per week and require annual subscriptions, although there is a money-back guarantee for the first 30 days.

Platform Sections

Jim Cramer

The banner section of TheStreet’s content is Jim Cramer’s blog and associated content. Navigating this content can be confusing since accessing some content, such as Jim Cramer’s “Action Alerts” and monthly investor call, requires a paid subscription. Meanwhile, Cramer’s annual stock picks and rules for investors are delivered as PDFs if you enter your email address. Finally, Cramer’s blog and articles related to Mad Money are available for free.

With respect to the blog content, there is some potentially useful medium-term financial commentary. Cramer offers insightful pieces that refer to a specific stock and offer relatively clear conclusions. Plus, these blog posts often dovetail nicely with articles that cover the content of Cramer’s Mad Money television show. Note, however, that the blog is part of “Real Money”, which appears to be a separate entity within TheStreet’s platform and takes you off of TheStreet’s main website.

Financial News

Under the menu headline “Investing,” TheStreet contains a wealth of financial news much like CNBC, Motley Fool, and other mainstream financial news sources. Articles cover the gamut of topics, from investor worries to stock picks to commentary on analyst ratings to the financial outlook for specific companies.

Depending on your perspective, the site is either helpfully or unhelpfully split by asset class rather than sector. There are dedicated news streams for stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, futures, cryptocurrency, and options. Note that there are additional dedicated streams for Bitcoin and Cannabis, even though these seem like they should fall under other asset classes.

All of the content on TheStreet is original, although many of the articles are only one to two short paragraphs. Personally, I find the quality of the news to be higher on sites like Seeking Alpha.

Overall, the financial news is more suitable for traders who want to scan a general news stream to start their day and cannot replace a dedicated day trading news service like Benzinga Pro. 

Personal Finance and Retirement

TheStreet pivots from investing news to offering guides and blog-style articles on personal finance and retirement. These sections of the site are targeted specifically towards long-term investors, or else not to investors at all. For example, there are sections of the personal finance pages devoted to articles about insurance, credit cards, and personal debt management. These sections appear to mix how-to articles with stock news, as there is both news of mergers and acquisitions and information about how interest rates work.

Within the retirement pages, visitors will find not only articles about how to invest for retirement but also a retirement calculator. This section offers far less in the way of financial news and is more similar to the types of retirement articles offered by mainstream financial planning websites.

How-to Blog

The how-to section of TheStreet appears to aggregate informational articles from across the platform. Here, TheStreet resembles a blog much more than a financial news service. The articles in the how-to section may be helpful for some people looking to get into trading, but since they cover everything from how to do your taxes to applying for student loans the target audience is not strictly traders.

Newsletters

TheStreet also offers eight different free newsletters. The frequencies of these newsletters vary, although most of them are delivered daily. While the descriptions of the newsletters indicate that there are some differences between them, the content is largely similar and include some form of curated articles from TheStreet and a recap of market activity.

Layout and Ease of Use

The organization of TheStreet’s platform is overwhelming and difficult to understand. Menus are repetitive or organized by multiple categories, as described for the sections available within the financial news menu. In addition, premium services and Jim Cramer’s blog lead to off-platform sites, with no way to easily return.

That said, once you have landed on the right section for your interests, the blog-style formatting will be familiar to most traders. Articles are organized chronologically and the inclusion of a short lead with each headline makes it easy to browse. It’s also possible to search articles by keyword – although, oddly, the same search bar is used to search stock quotes, so you cannot search articles for a specific stock.

Should You get Your News from TheStreet?

TheStreet caters to an extremely wide audience, which can make navigating the site difficult. However, it does provide a useful service – aggregating a wide variety of financial news – for free. In addition, the availability of free daily newsletters can be helpful for traders who can’t always keep an eye on the markets. That said, it is difficult to recommend TheStreet over CNBC or another online financial news source given the complexity and poor organization of the website.

Rather than cater to a specific type of trader, TheStreet has taken an approach of trying to appeal to everyone. Parts of the site include financial news that is highly relevant to stock, commodity, and options traders, while other news sections are more relevant to long-term investors. Non-investors, such as people simply looking to learn more about personal finance or retirement, can also benefit from the content on the platform. For traders who need a reliable, real-time streaming news service, TheStreet cannot replace a dedicated platform like Benzinga Pro or TradetheNews.