12 Best Stock Chat Rooms, Message Boards + Forums

Stock chat rooms, message boards, and forums are increasingly popular ways for traders to connect and discuss developments in the trading world—and, of course, trading ideas.

Online communities have come a long way from being just a place where like-minded individuals can chit chat. Nowadays, online communities see experts in their field share valuable information with peers and less-experienced people alike—and this applies to the trading world. In many stock chat rooms, beginner and intermediate traders can gain substantial knowledge (and trading ideas) from advanced traders, who in turn can benefit from bouncing ideas off their equals.

And as stock newsletter and investing research sites grow to understand the appeal of stock chat rooms, more and more, they’re including these features as part of their more comprehensive services.

But which stock rooms give investors and traders the most value?

Today, we’ll evaluate several of the best stock chat rooms. We’ll also discuss what makes for a good stock chat room, and what information you should seek out when determining whether to join one of these communities.

What Is a Stock Trading Chat Room, Message Board, Or Forum?

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Stock chat rooms, message boards, and forums are all different types of online communities. While they do have some similarities, the differences are what makes one community right for a certain type of user, and the other communities right for other types.

Stock chat room

Stock chat rooms are online communities focused on discussing stocks and trade ideas specifically, and investing broadly. Popular topics will depend on the stock chat room—some will be flush with swing trading ideas, while others will include more discussions about long-term investments. You’ll also find different mixes of experienced traders and people who are newer to stock trading.

Discussions in chat rooms usually involve shorter messages and typically aren’t archived.

Stock message board

Stock message boards allow investors to create a post about any stock topic that interests them. A post might range from sharing an experience (say, “Here’s what happened when I started focusing more on value”) to asking a question (say, “What has everyone been day trading lately?”) Anyone interested in the topic can leave a reply.

These messages are typically longer than those in a chat room and often at least temporarily archived.

Stock forum

The terms “stock forum” and “stock message board” are often used interchangeably, though there are technically slight differences. Forums promote debate and allow multi-directional discussions, whereas message boards often encourage users to focus more on the initial question or topic.

Best Stock Chat Rooms, Message Board, And Forums—Our Top Picks

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The Best Stock Chat Rooms

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First, we’ll look at stock chat rooms. These can range from basic investing venues to fast-paced day trading chat rooms. Swing traders likely will get the most of these options, though buy-and-hold investors can gleam some interesting information from them. This list includes free chat rooms, but also premium chat rooms that are part of subscription plans.

1. Trade Ideas Chat Room

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• Available: Sign up here

Trade Ideas caters to day traders who want to find the best trades using real-time data. The service pays attention to every publicly traded individual stock and exchange-traded fund (ETF).

Users can take advantage of Trade Ideas’ numerous features, which include (but aren’t limited to):

• Stock scanning
• Trade alerts
• Charting
• Backtesting
• Simulated trading
• Performance tracking
• Risk analysis

Also, accounts connect directly to E*Trade, allowing you to enjoy the brokerage’s $0 commission trading and other features through Trade Ideas’ platform.

Trade Ideas has a free live day trading chat room where users can interact with the Trade Ideas team and/or other members of the community. Barrie Einarson, an investor experienced in day trading and swing trading, hosts the live trading room and is an expert at utilizing Trade Ideas’ technology.

The live day trading chat room runs from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Eastern, Monday through Friday. Also, you don’t need a membership to join the live chat room—it’s free! However, users who want to use the same tools mentioned in the chat room, or just better understand what everyone is discussing, can sign up for either Trade Ideas Standard or Premium.

Related: 10 Best Stock Picking Services, Subscriptions, Advisors & Sites

2. Warrior Trading Chat Room

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• Available: Sign up here

The Warrior Trading chat room boasts more than 4,000 traders. Every day, the service’s educators do live trading, with video and audio, starting at 8 a.m. ET. Warrior Trading mentors can notify the room right away if something important in the trading world occurs.

With these chat rooms, traders can identify top stocks in play without the use of scanners.

You can watch live trading for free on YouTube, as well as see what others are saying in the chat. However, if you want to join the discussion and exchange trading ideas, you’ll have to upgrade to one of Warrior Trading’s paid memberships—the higher the tier, the more chat rooms you’ll have access to. Members also can earn and display badges to show others.

Outside of the chat rooms, memberships have numerous other perks. Members can access news, scanners, and a trade simulator. Members also have access to a number of trading courses (the number varies depending on your subscription level). Pro members can also access mentor sessions.

Unlike most of its competitors, Warrior Trading charges a one-time fee, rather than monthly or annual dues.

Related: 9 Best Fractional Share Brokerages to Buy Partial Stocks & ETFs

3. Benzinga Pro Chat Rooms

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• Available: Sign up here

Benzinga Pro’s stock trading chat rooms are geared toward traders of all experience levels. And the rooms are moderated to ensure everything runs smoothly.

Investors can pop into one of seven different chat rooms at any time. These include the Benzinga Pro Lounge, Benzinga Pro Options, Benzinga TV, Benzinga Pro Community Support, Benzinga Bootcamp, Benzinga Crypto, and Benzinga Pro Day Trading.

An eighth chat room—the Options Mentorship Inner Circle—is a private chat room that’s accessible only to Benzinga Pro Options Mentorship subscribers. Expert trader Nic Chahine runs the room and shares his trading strategies. Options Mentorship subscribers also receive trade ideas from Chahine.

Of course, Benzinga Pro members enjoy numerous other features on top of its chat rooms, including:

Other notable Benzinga Pro features include:

• Audio Squawk: A team calls out actionable news during premarket all the way through after-hours trading.
• Insider Trading Tracker: What are corporate insiders (company officers, big stakeholders and other important people) doing? Are they buying? Are they selling? How much do they own? This tool helps you learn more about insiders’ “skin in the game.”
• Stock Scanner: Get real-time, customized updates on the stock market.
• Charting: You can chart stocks within the Benzinga Pro platform, which uses a TradingView developer API (application programming interface).
• Calendar: Get dates for earnings reports, dividends, economic data releases, initial public offerings (IPOs), and SEC filings.
• More features: Trade alerts, news feed with customizable filters and real-time notifications, watch lists, and more.

You can visit Benzinga to sign up for Pro or learn more.

Related: Best Stock Trading Apps & Platforms for Beginners

4. TradingView Chat

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• Available: Sign up here

TradingView is one of a handful of valuable charting and screening platforms for both fundamental and technical analysis-driven stock traders, and it’s also something of a trading social network. It’s used by more than 30 million investors and traders, across 180 countries, every month to spot the best investment opportunities.

The platform sports numerous chat rooms discussing myriad topics: swing trading, ETFs, investments for beginners, and much more.

Stock chat rooms are archived, so when traders jump into a discussion, they can see what has already been talked about and how long ago comments were made. The most recent chats—where users have added comments within the last few minutes (or even seconds)—are displayed at the top of the list.

You can observe other experienced traders’ chats or add your own thoughts for free. However, to participate in TradingView chat, the platform says you must gain at least five “reputation points.” “These can be acquired by sharing your trading ideas, or commenting on other people’s ideas with constructive feedback,” TradingView says.

In addition to chat rooms, TradingView offers other features, including excellent charts and screening tools. Even Basic users can screen stocks, mutual funds, ETFs, closed-end funds (CEFs), foreign exchange (forex), cryptocurrencies, and more. You can screen with pre-built fundamental and technical sets, or use pre-built screens such as Large-Cap, High-Dividend, Most Volatile, even Largest Employers.

The web-based charting system includes real-time stock price data; historical charts (1-day, 5-day, 1-month, 3-month, 6-month, year-to-date [YTD], 1-year, 5-year, and all-time presets, as well as custom time frames); technical indicators; technical analysis summaries explaining whether a stock is a Buy, Sell, or Hold based on oscillators and moving averages; even the ability to draw and enter text on charts.

For more features, you can sign up for one of TradingView’s paid memberships—and you can put them through the paces with a 30-day free trial.

Related: 15 Best High-Yield Investments [Safe Options Right Now]

5. Black Box Stocks Discord Server

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• Available: Sign up here

Black Box Stocks members have access to a members-only Discord server filled with active traders who are frequently conducting scans. Moderators, who are also experienced investors, are called “Shot Callers,” and they strictly enforce the rules. For instance, trying to pump and dump penny stocks, or promoting any type of stock scheme, will result in a ban.

A feature that sets this chat room apart from others is the audio functionality. In the #bbs_chat room, members can listen to valuable insights from moderators and some of the most experienced traders who use the site.

Find a member’s comments particularly interesting? You can follow, subscribe, or direct message other members through Black Box Stocks’ fully integrated social media features.

Besides the chat room, members also gain access to live and recorded classes, proprietary trading tools (scanners, Options Flow, Advanced Analytics, etc.), and trade alerts.

New traders can kick off their membership with BlackBox Bootcamp—a free three-hour live training webinar. This course covers the basics of trading stocks and options and goes over how to use the platform’s features. More advanced classes are also offered for free.

Related: 15 Best Stock Research & Analysis Apps, Tools and Sites

6. Investors Underground

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• Available: Sign up here

Investors Underground is an online day trading community of literally thousands of day traders from around the globe, providing a boisterous chat room, educational materials, trading resources, and support from your fellow investor.

IU says its chat room “may be the most valuable component of our service.” Successful day traders scan the market in real time, generating trade ideas of their own and helping you discover your own opportunities. Investors Underground’s main chat room is momentum-focused, though it also features chat rooms centered around swing trading and penny stocks.

Membership also includes daily watch lists of top stocks that Investors Underground is focusing on for the day. IU notes that these lists are sent out the prior night, giving you “plenty of time to prepare before the market opens the next day and develop a game plan of your own.” But if you don’t want to develop your own game plan, that’s all right! Because the watch list also includes game plans, including stock charts and rationales.

Want to educate yourself to become a better trader? Each week, Investors Underground releases a few trade recap videos where they break down recent trades: the game plan, what went right, and what went wrong. Members also have access to hundreds of hours of video training, complete with trading lessons and real trade examples.

Related: 17 Best Stock News Apps & Sites [Financial & Stock Market Info]

7. Tim Sykes: Profit.ly Stock Chat Rooms

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• Available: Sign up here

Self-made millionaire trader Timothy Sykes, who runs the penny-stock site Profit.ly, also runs a penny-stock chat room.

Chat topics typically focus on stocks showing momentum and are meant to be brief discussions during market hours. In-depth due diligence for stocks, and general questions, are reserved for non-market hours so as to not distract from day trading.

Anyone who says a trade is a good or bad idea is expected to provide reasoning. Members can help moderators by sending them private messages. Users can’t send private messages to each other, but they can show support for useful information by pressing a heart icon that gives the poster “karma.”

The chat room, while not quite as active as other rooms like Investors Underground, also includes Sykes’ real-time trade alerts, which can be valuable for day traders. However, alerts can also be sent via SMS, email, and push alerts, so you don’t need to constantly be in chat to find out what’s happening.

Related: How to Get Free Stocks for Signing Up: 10 Apps w/Free Shares

8. Bear Bull Traders

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• Available: Sign up here

Bear Bull Traders is a community filled with serious traders from around the world who trade in the U.S. stock market.

Every day, in the main chat room, users can see live trading from the site’s experienced traders and hear the reasoning behind those trades. A premarket analysis show begins at 8:30 a.m. ET, and visitors can view the site’s scanners and see current news from the exclusive Benzinga Squawk Box feed.

Founder Andrew Aziz and other moderators provide live alerts in the Moderator Notifications section, as well as daily watchlists and other important information.

Visitors can check out the weekly chat room schedule to see what other real-time discussions are coming up. The schedule shows both the topics and who will be leading them. For example, the schedule might show “Trend Trading with Aiman” at noon and “Market Review and Swing Trade Ideas with Brian” at 3:30 p.m.

You can gain access to the live chat room through any of Bear Bull Traders’ plans.

Related: How to Invest in Stocks [A Beginner’s Guide to Start Investing]

Best Stock Message Boards and Comment Sections

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Next up, we’ll look at stock message boards and comment sections, where investors can post about topics that interest them and have their questions answered. Of course, investors also can just browse these message boards at their leisure to learn about various subjects.

9. The Motley Fool CAPS Community Message Board

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• Available: Sign up here

The Motley Fool’s CAPS Community, which you can access through services such as Stock Advisor and Epic, pools together information about stock picks from the platform’s employees and readers.

The Motley Fool Community Team runs more than 4,000 active discussion boards, and they can be identified by TMF or CMF at the front of their usernames. Some of the team members are employees, and some are members of the Community Team.

Teams answer your questions and ask some of their own to spur discussions. They also provide a wealth of investing insights, particularly about stocks. (And it goes without saying: The teams also promote respectful communication.)

The Motley Fool Community Team members have specific roles:

• Ticker Guides aim to keep conversations running by posting relevant news and earnings information.
• Coverage Fools distill interesting data from financial statements and provide other expertise.
• Home Fools keep quality discussions running and post content on boards that have had little activity as of late.

There are other team members, as well, that work hard to keep the message boards thriving. Whereas some message board moderators just keep threads civil, Motley Fool moderators keep them engaging, too.

Beginners can watch a tutorial to learn the basics of the Community Boards. More advanced users can take advantage of additional fun features, such as customizing boards, sending posts to others, and recommending posts.

While anyone can read the posts, new visitors can only make posts if invited by an existing discussion board member. Alternatively, one can fill out a brief application asking to post. Anyone who purchases a Motley Fool advisory service (Stock Advisor, Epic, etc.) automatically has the ability to post and invite up to 20 other people to post. Not to mention, you also enjoy the premium stock picks these services provide.

Read more in our Motley Fool Stock Advisor review and Motley Fool Epic review.

Related: 11 Best Compound Interest Investments [Where to Invest]

10. Seeking Alpha Comment Section

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• Available: Sign up here

Seeking Alpha is the largest investing community in the world, with 20 million investors using the platform every month. And every month, more than 7,000 contributors post 10,000 investing ideas. And while Seeking Alpha does indeed have a chat function—Rocket Chat, to be specific—we actually want to highlight the platform’s lively and robust comment sections.

If you scroll to the bottom of most of the site’s expert articles, you’ll find comment-thread discussions by advanced and novice investors alike. Members share differing perspectives, point out oversights, and sometimes add to the author’s original bull or bear case. The comment section isn’t an echo chamber, but rather a place for debate.

Seeking Alpha manages to be nearly free of spam and promotional comments. Comments also tend to stay polite and usually lack offensive material.

This might be due in part to the fact that new users automatically start out in moderation before soon moving on to unmoderated posting. Moderation decisions are done by the site’s independent, in-house team. Posts with personal attacks, abusive language, promotion, or trolling, are promptly removed.

Users are welcome to send direct messages to others; they must follow the rules in those messages, too.

Seeking Alpha Premium and Pro include far more features than the comment threads, of course. Depending on your tier, you can get unlimited access to Premium content, Seeking Alpha author ratings and performance, the site’s quant ratings, dividend grades, idea screeners and filters, short ideas portal, and newsletters. While Premium is a strong offering, we recommend Pro for intermediate and advanced investors. Sign up for Seeking Alpha, or check out our Seeking Alpha review.

Related: 10 Best Stock Advisor Websites & Services to Seize Alpha

Best Stock Trading Forums

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Next up, we’ll look at stock message boards and comment sections, where investors can post about topics that interest them and have their questions answered. Of course, investors also can just browse these message boards at their leisure to learn about various subjects.

11. BogleHeads Forum

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• Available: Sign up here

So, what exactly is a “Boglehead?” Let’s take it straight from the source, at Bogleheads.org:

“Bogleheads, a term intended to honor Vanguard founder and investor advocate John Bogle, are investing enthusiasts who participate in the Bogleheads Forum. The forum’s members discuss financial news and theory, while also helping less experienced investors develop their portfolios.”

The Bogleheads forum boasts more than 120,000 registered members and sees roughly 2,000 posts each day. Posts are divided into several categories, including U.S. Investing, Non-U.S. Investing, Community, and Wiki. A search function allows investors to quickly find topics that interest them the most.

The forum is moderated, and Bogleheads requires posts to refrain from personal attacks. Also, posts must avoid politics and religion, and trolling is not allowed.

You can access the message board threads for free and without an account. You must have an account to reply to a topic or create a post, but registering is free and only takes a few minutes.

Also, for those wondering: Bogleheads are typically buy-and-hold investors who favor a diversified portfolio that’s achieved via low-cost funds (often Vanguard funds). They care about expenses, and they care about how taxes can also drag on returns, so they focus on what should be held in taxable and tax-advantaged accounts.

Related: 10 Investments that Earn a Great Return [10% or More]

12. r/WallStreetBets

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The subreddit r/WallStreetBets is one of the most famous internet forums dedicated to investing. It’s also one of the most controversial.

On one hand, there’s lighthearted joking and memes. But there’s also foul language and posts that aren’t exactly “politically correct.”

Still, even investors who aren’t fans of the group’s humor stick around for the ample trade ideas. Members aren’t afraid to share their success, failures, and future plans. The types of posts vary widely, but it’s against the rules to post any type of scam or self-promotional post.

Like with any other chat room or stock forum, investors shouldn’t blindly follow w/WallStreetBets’ trade ideas and should always do their own research before acting. Still, it’s an engaging community—one that mixes trading opinions with some, ahem, colorful humor.

How Can Beginners Make Use of Stock Trading Forums?

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Stock trading forums are an excellent place for beginners to ask questions about specific stocks and investing in general. But to make the best use of a trading forum, beginners should be honest with themselves about what they do and don’t understand.

Even if you don’t have specific questions ready, forums provide a great opportunity to learn from more advanced traders. You can hear about useful trading apps (and how to use them better), stocks to pay attention to, where to find additional information, and more.

How Can Advanced Traders Use Stock Trading Chat Rooms?

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Advanced traders can (and should!) use stock trading chat rooms to bounce ideas off other experienced traders.

It’s easy to convince yourself of a trading strategy or the merits of a specific stock in a bubble. But you can gain new perspectives, and even improve your strategies, by seeking out other people’s views.

Why Should You Subscribe to or Visit a Stock Chat Room?

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Surrounds you with engaged investors

You might not have friends or family who know the difference between a bull market and a bear market. That’s OK! Chat rooms are designed for common interests. So when you jump into a stock chat room, you’re automatically plugged into an audience that’s engaged with the stock market. In general, these people are enthusiastic, and often knowledgeable, about the topics you want to discuss.

Lets you test your strategy with instant feedback

If you ask a question in a chat room or on a message board, chances are someone is going to respond. Similarly, if you post a trade idea or trading strategy, someone might point out any flaws in your thinking and guide you to new information. This kind of feedback on investing ideas might prevent you from making some costly mistakes.

Assists with sourcing new trade ideas

As any trader knows, it can take time to come up with new trade ideas. So especially if you have a full-time job outside of trading, it can help to have a way of sourcing trade ideas. Through chat rooms, you can debate ideas live or look back at archived discussions whenever it’s convenient for you.

The Risks of Using Stock Chat Rooms

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Poor or biased trade ideas

Trading chat rooms are filled with ideas—and some of them aren’t great. You can, and will, find poor advice, too. So if you instantly jump on a swing trading suggestion without doing more of your own research, you could easily lose money. Consider reading the opinions of both bear/bull traders before making any investment. Also, choose trading chat rooms that have active moderators who can quickly delete potential scams.

Can be costly

Some of the best trading chat rooms charge a monthly or annual subscription fee, or they’re included as part of pricy subscription services. These costs might be worth it to serious investors, but they might not make sense for some casual investors. Traders who only infrequently glance at stock chats might not be able to justify the price—and should instead consider a cheaper or even free chat room.

Requires constraint and only trading within your comfort zone

The abundance of ideas in chat rooms can make some people want to invest in every trade recommendation they see. But more isn’t necessarily better. So, participating in these chat rooms requires a certain degree of personal restraint.

How Much Do Stock Trading Communities Cost to Join?

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Fortunately, some stock trading communities—such as the subreddit r/WallStreetBets—are free to join. But others—which are usually part of broader subscription plans that also include stock screening tools, trade alerts, and access to industry experts—require you to pay.

How you pay can differ too. The Warrior Trading chat room, for instance, can be accessed via a one-time subscription fee for one of several tiers. However, most paid chat rooms require monthly or annual subscriptions. Because some services only offer the chat function and others have it as part of a more comprehensive platform, prices can vary greatly.

One useful note: It’s common for services to provide a discount if you pay annually, rather than monthly.

Which Stock Group Is Best for You?

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The best stock chat room, message board, or forum for you depends on factors such as whether you’re a serious or casual trader, your budget, and any other tools/services you might want.

Casual traders, with low budgets, who are solely interested in the chats should consider TradingView, Bogleheads, Trade Ideas (upgrade necessary for more features), and r/WallStreetBets.

More serious traders, with higher budgets, who want additional features should consider Warrior Trading, Benzinga, Investors Underground, Black Box Stocks, Tim Sykes, and Bear Bull Traders.

Motley Fool and Seeking Alpha land in the middle in terms of price, and both offer several useful features.

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