What Do You Think of the Motley Fool?

Uptosnuff

Uptosnuff

Member
Location
Great Plains, USA
Do you use it?

Many years ago I joined the Motely Fool. Back then, everything was free on the site. I think they were just trying to get a following going. I clicked around the site and did learn some interesting things about the stock market and investing. Now, though, I think you have to pay to get "good stuff".

I worked at Ameritrade for a short time about 25 or so years ago and opened up my first brokerage account and made my first online trade. I found out quickly I was no good at stocks. I simply did not and still don't want to put the time in to research to make good picks. I didn't invest a whole lot of money but what money I put into that account I lost because of bad picks.

My husband, however, is very good at stocks. He's thinking about using one of their advisory services. Are any of you members of Motely fool and what do you think about it?
 

I used to like their offerings and used the free stuff quit often but in the past couple of years I'm getting the sense their 'advice' is perhaps less independent as it once was? Not sure if their 'for a fee' service is ant better or not. Each investor has their own methods in gathering and ingesting market data so I think the important question for anyone might be; does this company supply the kind of information - market data - I want and do they offer it in a format I like.
 
I frequently read articles from the Motley Fool when they appear on the Yahoo financial pages. However, I don't see any better "advice" from the Fool than from any other source. If I read a half dozen "opinions" about where the markets are heading, I usually see 6 different ideas. Anymore, it seems that the most reliable indicator of where the markets are heading is the CBOE Vix.
 
Uptosnuff said:
Do you use it?

Many years ago I joined the Motely Fool. Back then, everything was free on the site. I think they were just trying to get a following going. I clicked around the site and did learn some interesting things about the stock market and investing. Now, though, I think you have to pay to get "good stuff".

I worked at Ameritrade for a short time about 25 or so years ago and opened up my first brokerage account and made my first online trade. I found out quickly I was no good at stocks. I simply did not and still don't want to put the time in to research to make good picks. I didn't invest a whole lot of money but what money I put into that account I lost because of bad picks.

My husband, however, is very good at stocks. He's thinking about using one of their advisory services. Are any of you members of Motely fool and what do you think about it?
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I'm kind of confused with your comment about husband being 'very good at stocks'. If he is that good, why pay for advice? I started investing in my late 20's and did well enough at it that wife and I retired at 56 and 54 strictly on investments -- no pensions or other income. We did this simply by following advice others have given ---- read Money, Kiplinger, Wall Street, etc. I used to go to the library weekly and treated investing as a part-time job.
For every really good piece of advice that I have sometimes told myself "I wish I had listened to that", two other pieces of advice, including paid-for, are dead wrong. Just a note --- once I hit 60's I got out of stocks entirely. That works for me even though the 'common wisdom' is to always have some percentage of stocks.
 
I read their articles because they come up in the news feed of one of my apps. I have never taken their investing advice and certainly wouldn't pay to do so. I found out the hard way that the investments I pick on my own do well. The ones I chose based on "expert" advice tanked. One was a mutual fund, whose ticker symbol isn't even recognized anymore. The other was a stock...Fitbit. I'm glad I sold each when I did and thankfully didn't lose too much.

I read the history of how Motley Fool got started on Wikipedia. I was interested in finding out the credentials of those giving investment advice. I didn't see anything about either of the Gardner brothers (Motley Fool co-founders) having degrees in finance or even financial backgrounds, except David, the younger brother wrote for Louis Ruykeyser's Wall street newsletter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Motley_Fool
 
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I subscribed to Motley Fool for a couple years about 10 years or so ago. I didn't blindly follow their advice but used it as suggestions and did my due diligence and made my own choices. One of their picks had me buy Netflix at $34 a share. That obviously did incredibly well as it's now around $700 a share and may have even split along the way. I sold at $390 or so as I felt it was too expensive. Oh well, still a huge gain. Also bought Marvel which was a big gainer and turned into Disney stock when the Mouse bought it. I bought Cintas in 2009 and it's up 1600% since then. MA is another huge winner. UA was a big winner before it tanked. I was able to get out with a small gain but that's one loser they had. Pretty much every equity position I hold today started as a MF pick. I've been lucky (maybe a little good) at avoiding their losers. I've only had a couple picks that actually lost money but a few others that underperformed. But the big winners more than make up for it. I hadn't been a subscriber for years but thought I'd try it out again just to see what they're up too. They had some huge winners in 2020 like Zoom, Shopify, Crowdstrike that I missed out on. For $49 a year it's worth a look if you're into holding individual stocks
 
retiredtraveler said:
I'm kind of confused with your comment about husband being 'very good at stocks'. If he is that good, why pay for advice? I started investing in my late 20's and did well enough at it that wife and I retired at 56 and 54 strictly on investments -- no pensions or other income. We did this simply by following advice others have given ---- read Money, Kiplinger, Wall Street, etc. I used to go to the library weekly and treated investing as a part-time job.
For every really good piece of advice that I have sometimes told myself "I wish I had listened to that", two other pieces of advice, including paid-for, are dead wrong. Just a note --- once I hit 60's I got out of stocks entirely. That works for me even though the 'common wisdom' is to always have some percentage of stocks.
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Hubby does read the WSJ, Fortune and a host of other money managing publications. That is why he is very good at stocks. But he said that the MF has had a few really good stock picks and that is why he is considering "buying into" one of their programs. I am probably not using the right terminology, but he feels that he can pay a certain fee and reap pretty good rewards for it. I guess it boils down to he has enough faith in their stock picking that he is willing to pay to get into it.

BTW, nice that you were able to retire at a young age on investments. You obviously did it right. I think everyone has their own level of comfort about investing. We are in our early 60s now and I have stuck with mutual funds but hubby is still stock trading and likes it. I will say that if we were only relying on his stock trading for our retirement, I might feel a bit concerned, but since I have mutual funds together with his stocks, I feel pretty good about that mix.
 
garyt1957 said:
I subscribed to Motley Fool for a couple years about 10 years or so ago. I didn't blindly follow their advice but used it as suggestions and did my due diligence and made my own choices. One of their picks had me buy Netflix at $34 a share. That obviously did incredibly well as it's now around $700 a share and may have even split along the way. I sold at $390 or so as I felt it was too expensive. Oh well, still a huge gain. Also bought Marvel which was a big gainer and turned into Disney stock when the Mouse bought it. I bought Cintas in 2009 and it's up 1600% since then. MA is another huge winner. UA was a big winner before it tanked. I was able to get out with a small gain but that's one loser they had. Pretty much every equity position I hold today started as a MF pick. I've been lucky (maybe a little good) at avoiding their losers. I've only had a couple picks that actually lost money but a few others that underperformed. But the big winners more than make up for it. I hadn't been a subscriber for years but thought I'd try it out again just to see what they're up too. They had some huge winners in 2020 like Zoom, Shopify, Crowdstrike that I missed out on. For $49 a year it's worth a look if you're into holding individual stocks
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Interesting success story. You hit the nail on the head that you have to use their advice as suggestions and make your own informed choices. We have also had successful MF stock picks which is why hubby is considering paying the fee for "the next level" of their stock picks.
 
Uptosnuff said:
Interesting success story. You hit the nail on the head that you have to use their advice as suggestions and make your own informed choices. We have also had successful MF stock picks which is why hubby is considering paying the fee for "the next level" of their stock picks.
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That's one thing I don't like about Motley Fool now, they have so many different services that have their own original ideas I no longer feel like I'm getting all their best rec's. Some are saved for the more premium services.
 


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