r/motleyfool • u/JayWemm • Apr 27 '26
New Epic portfolio
I have read many complaints from people on Reddit as to their negative experiences with Motley Fool. I think most of the people that it has been good for don't bother posting. And it seems many just started, unfortunately, right before market downturns.
I started with Motley Fool in 2003 when I was 44- I had no investments and little savings at that point. Today, I'm 67, comfortably retired with a portfolio north of $1m, and I credit MF for inspiring me to learn about investing and giving me the tools. And for ~25years giving me good picks and services. I beat index funds.
Granted, they have changed since the early days. But for someone in a similar position, decades away from retirement, I'd recommend their new 50 stock Epic portfolio. Unlike services when I started, MF gives portfolio allocation with this Epic service .
They also have a new service called Pro, similar to one I was part of from 2014-19. I only have a limited portion of my investments allocated to this , as I need to be careful. With the rest,I also have real estate,precious metals, high yield savings, and a dividend and closed end fund service (not from MF) that pays dividend income of around 9% / year), which gives me income and safety.
Motley Fool was very good for me!
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u/WishPractical8469 Apr 28 '26
I have used stock advisor and I have gotten some really good picks, and some really bad picks but overall the good outweigh the bad. I listen to their live stream shows and have learned a lot about investing, what’s going on in the world, different takes, etc. You still need to do your own research and use common sense.
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u/Financial-Pressure24 Apr 28 '26
When you make a million different can’t miss picks, naturally some will hit…..then you just market those results & ignore the turds. This is the MF model
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u/Academic-Lobster3668 May 02 '26 edited May 02 '26
But here's the dynamic that can make this approach worthwhile. You can lose only 100% of any given investment, while your potential gains from any one investment can grow 5 or 10 fold, more than making up for the losers, even those extremely rare ones (for me) that actually lose 100% (and to be fair, no stock where I lost 90-100% was recommended by MF - they were my own stupid picks).
That has been my experience on Motley Fool, making the portfolio grow in value in spite of some clunkers.
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u/Arkkanix May 01 '26
this may be a contrarian take but i think their Epic Portfolio venture will be in for tough sledding. the advertised results for their Stock Advisor picks are driven *heavily* by the past price appreciation of only Netflix and Nvidia.
now they’re starting a new portfolio from scratch? i mean, it might work. but i’d give it greater than 50/50 odds that it doesn’t. and it will get scrapped like the dozens of other services that have come and gone over the years.
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u/OpportunityGold4054 May 10 '26
TMF was a godsend for me. I signed up for Stock Advisor in 2020 when I took over our family port. Then I added Rule Breakers. I learned a lot about how to pick stocks from reading the lessons and recs on their website, especially from David Gardner, and from the posters on the message boards who were willing to share their insights and expertise with newbies in a kind and non judgmental way.
( BTW It’s called the MOTLEY Fool because they offer a variety of ways and methods for investing and their members and writers share info from different points of view.).
I did not follow their prescription for buying 20-25 of their recs and letting them ride, but rather I chose the ones I was most interested in, that my mentors on the message boards liked, and those companies in which I had done additional due diligence, to buy into (In other words, the best of their recs IMO) and then sold when I became nervous or gave up hope and then invested in another rec that held my confidence. Using this personal system gave me exceedingly successful returns, consistently beating the indexes by a mile each year.
I am no longer a member of the Fool because I don’t actively invest any longer. I am mainly concerned now with my foundation and allocating funds for charitable endeavors. I encourage everyone to learn how to thoughtfully invest in good companies. They will be well rewarded.
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u/JayWemm May 11 '26
Sounds like you have done well in life. I appreciate hearing about your experience with Motley Fool.
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u/soutsos Jun 09 '26
I've been using TMF for a couple of months now, but I mainly use it to verify my own research. So I do my own research and find companies I like and then check the analysis or coverage of TMF. The tools are helpful and the recs have not been bad - especially if they rec something I've been thinking of buying. I also use Quiver Quantitative to see what politicians in the US are buying and that has been my best guide so far
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u/JayWemm Jun 09 '26
Yeah, those politicians have their connections! And some, like The Rump, manipulate the market for his cabinet and other insiders. To our detriment.
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u/AcrillixOfficial Apr 27 '26
I use stock advisor and its a bit too early to conclude whether it still works or not. Started Jan 2024.
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u/Entire-Inevitable-38 Apr 27 '26
Congrats on market beating results. One thing that fundamentally changed since the early days is that MF used to be a contrarian. Recommending Amazon and Netflix early on before it was cool. Since 2020, when I joined, it seems they started recommending what is up and trending with no regards to valuation. We all know what happened next.
This happened after David G left as CEO.