Nick D.

If you can get 30 days of the Ultimate service for $1, do it! I've seen many negative reviews from people who simply didn't know how to turn off auto-renew after trying a trial period. And then they got charged. (Zack's makes this point clear when you sign up. You will be charged if you don't cancel.) It couldn't be easier. Go to "My Account", go to "Orders" and turn off auto-renew. Done. And you can do this the day you buy the trial. You still get your 30 days. They actually allowed me to sign-up for a "30 days at $1" deal four times! Then they told me I'd reached my limit. That gave me four months to look at EVERYTHING. Once you're in, I suggest looking at the various portfolios you can follow. They are actually very transparent. You can see every stock a particular portfolio has bought and sold, and how much money they made or lost on each one. You can even go back and look at results from previous years. (Once you're on a portfolio page, click on "Performance.") Each portfolio is run by a stock analyst, and they each provide regular updates on their portfolios, explaining why they are buying or selling a particular stock. The service isn't cheap. But try the $1 offer and click around. Look at everything. If you come to the site to buy a few random "Strong Buy" stocks here and there, you will fail. There's a lot more to investing than that. But the $1 trials are well worth it. (I did eventually buy into the service. It's only been a couple of months, so I can't say too much. But so far, I am having more success than when I was picking stocks on my own.)