VectorVest Review

VectorVest Ratings at a Glance

VectorVest Product Offering

VectorVest offers a comprehensive suite of sophisticated stock analytic and portfolio management tools. These powerful tools enable you to make informed trading decisions before risking your capital, giving you a competitive edge in the stock market. VectorVest can track, rank and analyze over 18,000 stocks from hundreds of different industry groups and business sectors. These encompass 8,000+ U.S. stocks and indices, 2,500+ Canadian stocks, 2,000+ European and Australian stocks, and over 2,000 U.K. shares. Here's a breakdown of the VectorVest platform and its features.

The Market Timing Dashboard 

At the core of VectorVest's platform is its market timing dashboard, which provides a simplified view of the stock market. This dashboard comprises a series of proprietary ratings and color-coded visual indicators. If you're new to stock trading, you may find it a bit complex, but worry not — the dashboard is incredibly intuitive, making it easy to understand and interpret. You'll first notice the Color Guard — a semi-circular color-coded dial for illustrating market timing. 

The colors to pay attention to on the dial are green and red. Green indicates a bullish market, while red signifies a bearish trend. VectorVest recommends trading with the market, not against it. So, when the dial switches to green for your selected equity, it's a signal to buy. If it's yellow, it indicates you should hold the equity. Other aspects of the dashboard provide more details about the market timing, including current changes in the Color Guard and the distribution of buy, sell and hold recommendations from the algorithm. 

Technical Indicators 

Besides traditional stock indicators like RSI, Fibonacci retracement, trendlines and moving averages (MAs), VectorVest also incorporates multiple proprietary technical indicators. This differentiates VectorVest from conventional technical analysis platforms like thinkorswim, Webull and MetaStock. VectorVest's proprietary stock indicators include relative safety (RS), relative timing (RT) and relative value (RV). RV measures how much a company's stock price is expected to grow compared to AAA corporate bonds, while RS assesses the consistency and predictability of the company's financial performance. RT is the trend indicator and measures a trend's direction, size and dynamics. Additionally, VectorVest adopts the Value, Safety, Timing (VST) score to create clear buy, sell and hold signals directing investors to rising stocks in rising sectors and markets. VST aggregates RV, RS and RT into a single number (1.0) for rating which stocks are the best investments at any given time. 

Stock Screener or Scanner

Thanks to the Unisearch stock scanner, you can search VectorVest's stock database to find the ideal equity to trade based on its proprietary indicators. This scanner boasts a handful of pre-built strategies, making VectorVest useful right out of the box. However, the scanner is not very self-explanatory. You can execute a simple scan based on VST and recommendations to identify trade ideas. 

For instance, when seeking an ideal short-selling candidate to hedge against market drops, you can filter for stocks with a VST and RS level below 0.5. That way, you get only a list of stocks with unstable financials that could be excellent short candidates. A perfect way to explore the scanner's pre-built strategy is via backtesting. By employing VectorVest's innovative backtesting module, you can see how the trading systems would perform over a custom historical period and make your decisions accordingly. 

VectorVest’s Charting and Graphing Tool

VectorVest features a fantastic charting interface that streamlines the visualization of price data, technical indicators and fundamental data like quarterly earnings. Like standard charts, VectorVest's chart provides high-quality trade data in different timeframes, facilitating seamless comparisons between past and current events. However, it is more flexible and customizable with numerous vital functionalities. You can directly plot VST ratings or use the platform's pre-configured strategy layouts. 

The Enhanced Protrader Timing Layout incorporates momentum indicators like MACD. At the same time, the Acid Test layout uses moving averages to visualize trends and support or resistance levels. You can manually draw trend lines and add various basic indicators to enhance the chart. Keep in mind, though, that it cannot serve as a replacement for robust standalone charting software like TradingView. Nevertheless, it is perfect for quick analysis of trade ideas generated from the Unisearch scanner.

Stock Watch List and Alert System 

VectorVest offers numerous stock watch lists you can follow for optimized performance. These watch lists are categorized by strategies based on the platform's proprietary algorithms. You can also create a custom watch list that meets your needs. Additionally, VectorVest offers an effective desktop or email alert system called Watchdog. To receive alerts, input your criteria, such as pricing, support or resistance levels, MACD crossovers and more. The Watchdog will immediately alert you once your set criteria are fulfilled. 

Stock Advisory Mobile App and Brokerage Integration

VectorVest has a proprietary mobile application called the Stock Advisory Mobile App that streamlines remote or on-the-go access to the platform's features regardless of your location. With the app, you can access all the platform's features, including your stock graph, market timing, stock screener and watchlists without hassle. The app boasts an intuitive and user-friendly interface that makes navigation a breeze. VectorVest integrates with a few brokerage platforms, including Interactive Broker and QuestTrader, for streamlined all-in-one portfolio management.

Educational and Research Resources 

VectorVest provides a comprehensive educational resource encompassing training tutorials, articles and videos. Available resources are accessible on the educational tabs and cut across topics such as growth and income investing, options trading and swing trading. You can gain valuable insights into these topics by participating in the available learning channels. These include events and webcasts, group coaching and digital courses. The lessons are well-executed and easy to follow.

However, the digital courses appear expensive, and some customers have complained about VectorVest's heavy focus on selling the courses and add-on products. On the article tab, you'll find many well-crafted articles on multiple topic categories, including options trading, swing trading and retirement investing. VectorVest also provides news and daily stock market analysis to platform subscribers. Additional helpful resources include an investment calculator and a stock market masterclass on VectorVest's YouTube channel.

VectorVest offers customers across multiple channels, such as LiveChat, email and phone. If you seek an immediate response to your question or fast complaint resolution, consider the phone or LiveChat. The phone number and operational time vary across each country where the company offers services. If you're in the U.S., you can reach the company at 1-704-895-4095 from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. ET Monday through Friday. You can email the company at support@vectorvest.com for less urgent complaints requiring detailed explanations.  

VectorVest also maintains an active presence on prominent social networking platforms, including X (formally Twitter), Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Reddit. So you can connect with the team via these channels and ask your questions. Vector is BBB accredited with an A+ rating and has an average rating of 3/5 on Trustpilot from 1,000+ reviewers. There is a mix of positive and overly negative comments and sentiments towards the platform. 

VectorVest is not a brokerage platform or broker-dealer, so it has no access to your investment funds. While the company collects personally identifiable information (PII) during signup, it is used for enhanced service delivery and marketing. For instance, VectorVest uses your email to provide educational content, streamlining your understanding of the platform features and advancing your stock trading expertise. The platform adopts robust encryption protocols to protect sensitive data at rest on transit through its network, preventing unauthorized access by malicious online actors. VectorVest will not sell or share your data without authorization. The platform strictly adheres to data protection rules and regulations across all jurisdictions where it operates. These include the U.S., Canada, Australia, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Hong Kong and Singapore.

VectorVest offers three subscription packages — Basic, Enhanced and Premium. All three packages come with a 30-day trial costing $9.95. There are no hidden fees or strings attached, and you can cancel anytime. The basic subscription package costs monthly and provides end-of-day data updates (no live data feeds during market hours). This package also offers access to VectorVest's core features, including its proprietary VST indicators, marketing timing, daily stock picks, stock screeners and watch list and worldwide market analysis. 

You'll get free educational courses, successful investors' quick start courses, trading plans and TradeNow. The TradeNow feature lets you trade directly from VectorVest's partners, while the Trading plan tells you exactly what, when and how to trade. Overall, the Basic plan seems ideal if you're just getting started. The Enhanced plan costs $99 per month and is perfect for intraday trading since it includes data updates every 15 minutes. In addition to all the features available on the Basic plan, you get VectorVest's proprietary dynamic trading stop. 

The Premium package costs $149 per month and offers real-time stock market data, strategy backtesting and breakout alerts (Watchdog). Real-time market data facilitate lightning-fast trade decision-making. So the Premium package is the best option if you can afford the price. In addition, it comes with free access to ProTrader and AutoTimer add-on. VectorVest boasts multiple top-tier plugins and add-ons, including RoboTrader, RealTime Derby, OptionPro and ProfitLocker Pro.

These add-ons can help you optimize your performance based on custom and backtested strategies. For instance, the RoboTrader monitors your portfolio in real-time 24/7. At the same time, RealTime Derby automatically runs the best of all VectorVest's strategies, providing you with a clear view of the best strategy to adopt. OptionPro provides insight into profitable option investment opportunities, and ProfitLocker Pro helps you maximize profit leverage VectorVest's dynamic trading stop. However, the add-ons attract considerable costs ranging from $99 per month to a one-time fee of $495, depending on your choice. 

VectorVest stock trading software can overwhelm novice, intermediate and seasoned traders without excellent technical expertise because of it numerous sophisticated trading tools and features. Thankfully, the platform offers excellent video tutorials to help traders narrow the learning curve and gain mastery of its features. To enjoy VectorVest, pay attention to the available quick-start courses or tutorials. Once you master how to use its features in optimizing your trading performance, you'll find the platform easy to use. 

However, VectorVest needs improvement on its website. For instance, Benzinga couldn't find the signup button, possibly because of too much information on the homepage. Besides that, the platform checks all boxes regarding user experience. The trading system's fundamental principle is practical and delivers accurate market analysis. The proprietary indicators are efficient, and the educational resources are excellent. Additionally, VectorVest offers adequate customer support. Benzinga considers the platform recommendable.

VectorVest vs. Competitors

VectorVest has many competitors like Trade Ideas, TradingView, MarketBeat and MetaStock. However, VectorVest offers a more comprehensive suite of features than these competitors. For instance, Trade Idea is a real-time stock scanner that can help you identify breakouts; MetaStock is ideal for buy and sell signals, and TradingView can deliver excellent buy and sell ratings for nearly all stocks. You can think of VectorVest as blending some of these features. Unlike platforms like Yahoo Finance and Seeking Alpha, which rely on financial advice from pundits and institutional investors, VectorVest's investing advice is based on mathematical models. These models consider market timing, stock value and safety, which can provide better accuracy.

VectorVest is an excellent tool that can help you make smarter and more informed trading decisions if you've significant investment capital and can afford the subscription cost, especially for the premium plan, which offers the best features. The software is robust and stable. Powerful stock trading software like VectorVest can give you a competitive edge and help improve your trading performance and profitability. Although the pricing may seem expensive, without the add-ons it is within industry standards, and the platform provides an extensive trial period. Additionally, VectorVest has an excellent customer service team to help you get your account set up and running once you're ready to go. 

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