Fool`s Offer

[shortduck]

I came across this promotion:

https://www.fool.com/order/fe_offers/wf/294bb955-a2a3-4699-ac7a-3c4f9bb0ee52?c=sa-inv-btr&source=awin&awc=12195_1620243053_8e6bc3be0b7ea465e314868762b99063&testId=op-sa-pc-awin&cellId=4&campaign=sa-partner-centric

They claim that they beat S&P 500 by many folds. the subscription is $99 for a year. 




Although I do understand when JL Collins says that your cant predict the market and most of the funds managers cant beat SP500 over many year.

what are your thoughts on this?

[TheAnonOne]

Fool isn't new, what is their track record? Do you think it will continue?

[Financial.Velociraptor]

Stock Advisor picked AOL *and* Amazon back in the early days of the internet.  Each returned many thousands of percent and skews the long term returns.  Try asking customer service for a comparison of the past 3, 5, 10 years (whatever) versus the S&P and watch them squirm.  They also had a couple dozen of failed newsletters.  Global Gains, Special Ops, PayDirt, etc. all lost investors money and lost so many subscribers they had to cancel the service(s). They only advertise their cherry picked winners. Since they keep launching new products, from time to time they get a winner through sheer dumb luck. 

I know because I used to subscribe.  I would probably still be there but I was deeply offended by the "sierra wireless" advertisement they put out.  Basically guaranteed an 86 bagger, said it was the "only you stock you'd ever need to own" and went against a bunch of their own founding principles.  When pressed on the hypocrisy, they insisted the ends justifies the means.  I canceled in disgust.

It was a much better service before they paid off their venture capital partners.  The ethics went way downhill at that point.

[FLBiker]

Aside from the standard "past performance is no indicator of future results" disclaimer, the question I ask myself in these situations is "why are they selling this advice?"  If I could reliably get 5x the return of the S&P 500, why would I bother selling $99 subscriptions?  Similarly, if I had a great (real estate / gold / crypto / whatever) strategy, would I really spend my time going city to city doing seminars?

[MustacheAndaHalf]

@Financial.Velociraptor - I subscribed to "Rule Breakers" and "Stock Advisor" from 2021 Q4 to 2023 Q4.  Which years did you subscribe?

Unfortunately I started when inflation was 7% and the Fed was in denial.  As the Fed raised rates faster than any time in history, Motley Fool stocks took a severe beating - far worse than the market.  I got out... then bought back in, only to take another beating.  I could believe any performance comparison that includes 2021-2022 will favor the market over Motley Fool picks.

Before 2021 Q4, their performance (including losing picks) beat the S&P 500.  After signing up, I dropped many past picks into a spreadsheet and calculated performance, and was impressed.  Of course, if you invested partly in the S&P 500 and partly in tech stocks, you would have beaten the market as well.  I don't recall how they did compared to other tech indices (Nasdaq, tech sector ETF).

[Financial.Velociraptor]

@Financial.Velociraptor - I subscribed to "Rule Breakers" and "Stock Advisor" from 2021 Q4 to 2023 Q4.  Which years did you subscribe?

Unfortunately I started when inflation was 7% and the Fed was in denial.  As the Fed raised rates faster than any time in history, Motley Fool stocks took a severe beating - far worse than the market.  I got out... then bought back in, only to take another beating.  I could believe any performance comparison that includes 2021-2022 will favor the market over Motley Fool picks.

Before 2021 Q4, their performance (including losing picks) beat the S&P 500.  After signing up, I dropped many past picks into a spreadsheet and calculated performance, and was impressed.  Of course, if you invested partly in the S&P 500 and partly in tech stocks, you would have beaten the market as well.  I don't recall how they did compared to other tech indices (Nasdaq, tech sector ETF).

Would have been around 2009 through 2012.  I was subscribed to a basket deal and had several services.  Entertaining to read.  Not better than the market.  I was fine with trailing the market given I was shooting for low vol.  It was the shift away from the mission to making money no matter the cost that turned me off.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

Wow... low volatility back in 2009-2012?  You wouldn't recognize them in 2021-2022, given how much they prefer high volatility tech stocks.  That's a really surprising comparison, and I'd agree they've changed dramatically.

For OP: something else to consider with a subscription: what is $100/year as a percent of the money you will invest based on the Motley Fool?

Invest $1,000 and you're paying 10% subscription fee
Invest $10,000 and you have 1% expense ratio
Invest $100,000 and the subscription costs 0.1% of what you invest

[Ron Scott]

Walk

[Chris Pascale]

I wonder if they have a YouTube channel, or if there's someone with a channel that is nothing more than "This Week from Motley Fool."

[vand]

er, the S&P has returned a lot more than 139% since 2002, so wouldn't surprise me if they're comparing apples with paddling pools.

[reverend]

I'm a big fan of Motley Fool and their Stock Adviser newsletter specifically.

I started subscribing in 2007 after looking for something that aligned with my buy-hold-and-mostly-ignore idea of investing.   

They've had some duds, but on the whole, they've been remarkably good in their recommendations and they are the reason I'm FI.   Netflix, Amazon, NVidia etc. etc.   Yeah, they are the huge winners, but there are many 'smaller' winners too.

The irony is that one of their employees admitted they'd have more money if they held the stocks they recommended selling as over time they were still good investments.  This was back when they had their own (crappy) message board and their staff was interacting.

The one thing that annoys me is their free advice on their site.  A lot of that is clickbaity and seems to be "3 reasons to hate this stock" and then it's a company they've recommended repeatedly etc.

Now it also seems they have affiliate marketing where a bunch of wannabe youtubers can hawk their videos on fool.com with their opinions.  In my mind, that cheapens the entire experience with them, but the Stock Adviser newsletter that I still subscribe to seems as good as ever.


Let's just say that for $50/year, it's both cheap and has paid for itself a few thousand times over.

[Must_ache]

It says that its compound returns over the last four years are
42.5%
100.1%
153.4%
208.7%
That's pretty great

[dandarc]

I bought Stock Advisor not because I wanted to actually read it (index, buy and hold). I did it because it cost $89 and it came with $120+ worth of american airlines miles (based on what I'm able to redeem at - YMMV). So you know, check your various shopping portals for deals and you can make a profit on this whether or not you even read the thing.

[WayDownSouth]

They are fools. With that said, there is enough good info within there to EASILY justify $99. If you can resist being a follower/copycat, and use their resources as an extra metric to consider rather than a go-to-guide, you'll get much more than your money's worth.