The Motley Fool Stock Advisor Review

The Motley Fool is most definitely one of the more recognized investment news services that are currently in publication.

Of course, every trader wants to be abreast as to what’s happening in the world of finance. However, we think that there’s something more that is even more valuable, a way to completely do much better than the markets.  I signed up for The Motley Fool in early 2019, and quickly witnessed why they are so popular.

The first stock they told me to buy was SHOP (Shopify.)  Being an Internet Marketer, this company was one I’d known about for some time.  The stock traded around $125, and before the end of the year it was $400 and was approaching $600 at one point.  With this introduction to their services, it was easy for me to get excited about writing a Motley Fool Review!

What is Motley Fool?

The Motley Fool Stock adviser is perfect for those who are looking for a sharper edge.

Not only does it provide a great amount of financial news, but it also provides information as to how what stocks to buy as well as what they’re going to do in the next few years.

Based in Alexandria, Virginia, the Motley Fool provides sound financial news for both companies and individual investors since its inception in 1993.

Founded by brothers Tim and David Gardner, The Motley Fool boasts over 300 employees.

Motley Fool provides financial news and analysis on its website, and the company is widely quoted by other financial news sources. It has grown to become one of the top investment advisory firms in the industry.

The Motley Fool also offers a newsletter service as their most popular product, which assists in picking stocks for the investor.

What is the Motley Fool Stock Advisor?

The company claims that their picks are beyond compare. At current, they say that they return a boastful three-hundred and ninety-two percent on investment since the year 2002. As such, The Motley Fool claims that their efforts have consistently outperformed the stock market.

Upon signing up for the stock advisor, you’re going to get several new picks each and every month. These tips come from the founders David and Tom Gardner, and they’ll have at least one pick each month.

The company backs up its claims with real-world statistics. For example, if an investor would have followed their advice and invested in Booking.com, Walt Disney, Netflix, and Amazon in 2002, they would have more than four hundred thousand dollars. This is under the assumption that the investor would have invested at least one-thousand dollars in each of the companies.

While these stocks are some of the highest performing stocks in recent memory, and aren’t indicative of future performance, but here are the company reports in that particular time:

Booking.com – up 8,194%
Netflix – up 12,492%
Disney – up 7,451%
Amazon – up 11,502%

Be sure to understand that these numbers may be a bit off due to timing differences, as we compiled these numbers from the middle of 2002 until today. As with anything, it’s vitally important to do your own research before you start acting on anything new.

Well, Amazon and Netflix make sense and don’t really require a whole lot of forecasting. FAANG stocks are some of the most popular stocks that are publicly traded, so you can count on just about everyone has them.

These stocks are generally included in many ETFs managers choose to invest their client’s money into. If owned directly, as per the Motley Fool’s recommendation, the client would be able to make more money if they were directly owned.

It’s for this reason that the Motley Fool is so popular with investors. They’re a well-respected space in the financial industry with their great returns. It’s why they have more than 600,000 active members for all of their services.

Furthermore, the company states that you should spread your money across more than a dozen different stocks. This is in addition to you having some nice, safe investments that round out your portfolio.

Motley Fool Stock Advisor Products & Services

While the Motley Fool newsletter is priced at $199, they’re currently offering their service for just $99 per year. This includes an assurance to the buyer in the form of a 30-day money-back guarantee. This allows you to see if the service will be of use to you. If you don’t like it, you can cancel the program within that time.

As of now, there’s nothing saying that the $99 deal is only for the first year, or if it’s for the lifetime of you have the services. However, you can also take advantage of the monthly subscription option. This brings the price down to $19 per month, though the math over the course of the year is obviously higher at $228.

However, if they can hold up to those claims that the state, you won’t really think about either of the prices if you follow their advice.

Here are some of the most popular features of the Motley Fool’s service:

Constantly updated stock analysis

This nifty feature tells the potential investor why a stock is a good opportunity for them, and why it should be in a portfolio. It’s called the Buy Case.

The Risk Profile is a figure based on The Motley Fool’s rating system. It’s a popular feature that speaks about the positives and negatives of their stock pick.

Lastly, they have 24/7 monitoring that will tell the investor about the stock’s current standing, including when they should let go of it

Monthly stock recommendations.

With this service, you don’t have to worry if you missed out on previous recommendations – there will always be a steady stream of new ones coming down the road.

Of course, this is the main reason why people search for this particular service. Every month you’ll get new stock selections, including reports on some opportunities that are worth considering, too.

Stock management and alerts.

You create your own portfolio as being a member. This allows you to follow the companies and their stocks that you’ve invested in.

They’ve developed an alert system that gives you information on any of the major moves, as well as sell and buy options for the stock.

Stock Advisor community.

The Motley Fool has a forum where you can develop and discuss strategies with other members of their forum.

Customer Service Options

Customer service is available from 9:30 AM to 4 PM EST, Monday through Friday. You can reach them via phone and email.

What’s The Investment Strategy?

The Motley Fool uses information about the companies to base their recommendations that they give to their members. It’s more designed for people who are interested in a long term strategy.

As such, it’s a strategy that will take a few years for it to pay off. For that reason, this strategy is best used for people who aren’t interested in day trading or those who practice short-term investing.

Furthermore, they employ a position and counter-position point of view. This means that they’ll give a good reason for people to buy a stock. Alternatively, they’ll also give a reason why the potential investor shouldn’t buy it.

It’s a true pro and con system, presenting two sides of an argument before one buys.

This means that the company will go through the nuts and bolts of the company. This can come up with interesting investment opportunities, especially if they come up with companies that seem to get less attention than their peers and there’s money to be made in the future.

They don’t stop here, either. They also look at other factors like new product lines, a variety of qualitative factors, and any important developments that affect may the company.

Some of these factors can be trade policy, a change in interest rates, and other things that may help or hurt the company. Their aim would be to find factors that will ultimately turn into a profit.

Their list of recommendations generally hinges on the risk involved, in addition to the time where its best to sell a stock.

People tend to like this feature a lot because while they can generally get a good recommendation in which to buy stock, but sufficiently less help when it comes time to sell that same stock.

Of course, you won’t find that the newsletter will tell you exactly when you should sell, but what set of happenings that would make sense to sell. It’s in the best interest of any investor to make the final choice.

It should be said that while the system is pretty good, it should always be used as a starting point as opposed to being the end-all.

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor will always give you a recommendation, but you’ll have to do your homework to determine if it will work well in your portfolio. If it fits your investment style, you may want to pull the trigger. On the other hand, you may want to stand pat.

Motley Fool Stock Advisor Reviews & Testimonials

Since the Stock Advisor is part of the whole organization, the BBB doesn’t rate it by itself. However, the organization does rate as a “B”. The same can be said about Trustpilot.

The ratings here weren’t as good, as they accumulated one star out of five available stars. At current, this is based on just less than 130 reviews.

Who is Motley Fool Stock Advisor Good For?

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor service is probably best used for investors who like to invest in individual stocks that have the opportunity to pay off big.

There seems to be a lot of robo-advisors out there. They’re designed to handle all of the investing for you, mostly with divvying out investments based on equities and fixed-income investments. You basically set a certain level of risks and the calls are made. This program isn’t that.

It’s versed in picking the correct stock, but ultimately the decision has to be made by the investor.

Robo-advisors aren’t specifically designed to outperform the market, but it’s also to keep it as close as possible as the trend, with an aim to not underperform. This strategy is slow and steady, taking very few risks.

This system, however, is good for those who like to take more risks and hope to maximize every investment that they make. Aggressive investors seem to work well using the newsletter.

Instead of fixed income securities, the recommendations will be stocks. With some help, it won’t e difficult to come up with a well-balanced portfolio. Since it’s not a primary aim of the service, there’s less need to worry about that.

It’s also not designed for those looking for capital preservation and growth. Managed portfolios may be a better option in these cases, such as those found with a human broker or even a robo-advisor like mentioned above.

Stock recommendations are long-term positions, so this also makes this a bad fit for day traders.

This does still offer you the flexibility to build other sides of income, such as bonds and CDs that are generally viewed as much safer options as opposed to stocks.

The newsletter is known to do better than the S&P at a 4 to 1 margin. This makes it attractive if you’re looking for better returns on investment, especially considering its negligible cost.

There is a high level of risk involved, as there is no promise of getting a return on your investment. You may even find out that you will lose money, too.

They only give you recommendations based on their internal data. Fortunately, they’ve been responsible for great returns for almost 20 years.

So, people asking “what is Motley Fool?” are well on their way to not only answering that question, but also making some good returns on their investments.

Pros & Cons

PROS

You have the chance to do better than the market.

You get stock recommendations from true experts each month.

You get recommendations on when to both buy and sell the stock. Most services only focus on the buying aspect, not the selling aspect.

If you don’t like the service in the first 30 days, you can cancel it and get a refund on your purchase.

You get an established agency giving you recommendations, not someone who is the flavor of the month.

CONS

If you choose to cancel after the 30-day period, you won’t get a partial refund. You have to be sure that you’re sticking with it within the time frame.

You won’t have a litany of options for customer service. If you can’t contact them during standard business hours, you’ll find it hard to get any help.

Day-traders and other short-term traders won’t find a lot of options here, as it was designed for longer-term positions.

Getting Started

If you’d like to sign up, you’ll have to give them the following info:

Name
Address
Phone Number
Email
Credit Card Number and Expiration

They collect sales tax for about half of the states in the US. However, they take all major credit cards, including Discover, American Express, Visa, and MasterCard.

Once you give them that information, you’ll be given access to the following features:

Starter Stocks. This list of stocks will be a good starting point for any budding investor. The 10 are considered to be solid foundations that will greatly help your portfolio.

Best Buys Now. A curated list of stocks developed by Tom and David Gardner, destined to be good stocks to pay attention to at the time they’re provided.

Knowledge Base. Access to a database of information that you can check at any time. It’s chock full of reports over the past 15 years.

Market News Coverage. Aggregated news coverage of anything that’s happening in the investment space.

The Motley Fool Community. Access to the members-only stock advisor community. This allows for members to talk stock and get advice from advisors employed by the Motley Fool.

Is Motley Fool Stock Advisor Worth it?

Whether or not it’s worth it depends on what the goals the investor has for their financial future.

If you’re looking to take on a higher level of risk than the average, this may be worth a try. The opportunity to outperform the market is there.

At either price point, the service’s skills seem to easily be worth either the $99 or $199. People spend much more money on things that aren’t nearly as valuable as this service.

The service is especially good for people who are more aggressive by nature, as well as younger people who are attempting to set up their financial futures for the long run.

This is also a good choice for those who already have their portfolios set and are currently looking for a way to invest a little into a more aggressive investment style.

Using just ten or twenty percent into stocks can turn into some substantial returns, greatly strengthening any portfolio.

We’ve seen a fair amount of fluctuation in the market. one day it’s done hundreds of points, while the next day it rises hundreds of points. The shift from a bull market may make it better for people to picking single stocks.

However, it can be tough to give a blanket recommendation here, as The Motley Fool’s approach is different than what the industry has been shifting two in the past few years. This is doubly true for those who aren’t as aggressive in their investing.

If you do find yourself on the other side of the coin and are especially higher in risk tolerance, you may want to allocate a bit of your portfolio to see what it’s all about.

If you’re still asking “what is the Motley Fool Stock Advisor?”, please be sure to look into it more. The Motley Fool Stock Advisor website is easy to navigate and should sufficiently answer all of the questions that you may have.

We assuredly consider their stock-picking service to be worth a deep-dive, as it allows the standard investor to really beat the markets, not just come close.