One of the biggest influencers in Altcoins is Teeka Tiwari of Palm Beach Confidential. He has a monthly newsletter that comes out the third Thursday of every month and in that monthly report, he usually has one or more recommendations on a small to mid cap Altcoin. To gain access to the report you have to pay a subscription, which will set you back anywhere between $2,500 to $3,000 per year (and it auto renews).
For the most part, the research is tailored to the average investor that doesn't have the time, skills or resources to vet individual coins. Teeka has his proprietary methodology of analyzing cryptos and his connections to key people within the industry go a long way. The great thing about his report is that it's written in an easy to read level.
So why does this report matter? Because it moves prices. In fact, even the rumor of what could be included as a recommendation in the next monthly report moves prices.
Here are the last two examples:
ZEN went from 140000 to 510000 satoshi in a day.
XRP went from 2700 to 4000 satoshi in a matter of hours.
If you're strapped for cash and can't afford the subscription price, certain people in the twitter sphere have been good at putting together clues as to which coin Teeka will recommend in his next issue. They are worth following and turning on notifications so that you can make the trade as soon as possible. Of course, these are just trades, because as you can see the price gets ahead of itself relatively quickly and it's better to sell and moving on to the next coin.