Motley Fool Review (Dec 2023): Is Stock Advisor Worth It? (2024)

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UPDATED: December 3, 2023

Upcoming Stock Release: December 22, 2023

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The Motley Fool is one of the biggest names in stock market investing. Today, I review their famous Stock Advisor service and put it to the test.

In this Stock Advisor review, I explain how the service works and break down whether it’s worth it. I reveal the good, the bad, and the ugly, and explain who should join and who should skip.

I also expose insider data to analyze whether Motley Fool stock picks actually make money and beat the market over time. Plus I share tons of screenshots from inside the membership area so you can see exactly what it’s like.

(Update for 2024: Since The Motley Fool reorganized their site, this article contains performance data and charts you can’t find anywhere else)

The truth is I learned how to invest with Motley Fool, so I have first-hand experience with how it works in the real world. And as Founder & Chief Editor of Investor’s Handbook, I’ve tried dozens of stock picking services, so I know how it compares.

Let’s start off with a quick summary of my findings…

Motley Fool Review 2024

The Motley Fool has a track record of selecting stocks with high growth potential and long-term potential for appreciation. On average, their recommendations have outperformed the market, yielding a return of 520% compared to the S&P 500’s return of 134%. Since its inception in 2002, 179 of the Motley Fool’s stock picks have doubled in value, and 60 have gained 500% or more. The best performer among their picks has seen an increase of 28,552%.

Quick Summary

Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor is a stock recommendation and investing education service that picks high-growth stocks (plus the occasional blue chip) and has a strong history of beating the market since its launch in 2002. It costs $89/year for new members.

Here are the most important points from my Motley Fool review:

Company Basics

• Motley Fool is an investing content company based in Alexandria, Virginia; they employ over 700 people across several countries.
• Stock Advisor is The Motley Fool’s flagship, premium, stock-picking service. It provides over 1,000,000 subscribers with two stock ideas each month, plus a wide range of investing tools and education.
• Members receive: Two stock recommendations each month, Best Buys Now, Starter Stocks, historical stock picks (with performance data), live discussions, and much more (full details below).

Who Is Motley Fool Good For?

• They recommend high-quality growth stocks and blue chip stocks from the Technology, Healthcare, Industrial, Consumer, and Financial sectors.
• Their stock picking service appeals to a wide range of investors who are interested in high-quality stocks with big growth potential over time, plus those who want to learn how to analyze stocks and invest wisely.

How Do Their Stock Picks Perform?

• Since launch in 2002, Motley Fool stock picks are beating the market by 3X, a very large margin.
• Most of their stock picks make money, with roughly 60–70% of their picks returning a positive gain.
• Their biggest winners are up 9,000% — 29,000% and crushing the market by an enormous margin.
• Even though most of their individual stocks aren’t beating the S&P 500, their big winners have such incredible gains that their overall portfolio is beating the market.
• Finding mega winners is part of Motley Fool’s secret sauce (they have nearly 200 picks that are up 100% or more).
• Over 30% of their picks have gained 100%+, and over 10% of their picks have gained 500%+.
• Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor bets on stocks with big upside, which means individual stock returns will be all over the place. But as a group, Stock Advisor picks tend to perform really, really well over time.
• Because the Motley Fool service looks for stocks with big long-term upside, it’s important to buy a portfolio of 25+ stocks and hold for at least 5 years to ensure you get a few big winners and achieve their strong returns.
• If you buy just a few Stock Advisor picks, your short-term performance is unpredictable. But if you buy a diversified portfolio of 25+ stocks, your long-term performance is actually very predictable.

How Much Does Motley Fool Cost in 2024?

• The Stock Advisor membership fee ($89 per year for new members) is pretty cheap compared to the value of profitable stock picks and actionable investing education; plus they provide a LOT more value than comparable services at the same price point.

Bottom Line: Motley Fool Rating: ★★★★★ 5.0

• If you want to discover high-quality growth and blue chip stocks with huge upside potential over the coming 3–5+ years, and you want to learn how to invest wisely along the way, then the Motley Fool is absolutely worth joining.
• If you’re an advanced investor, day trader, extremely risk-averse, not interested in growth stocks, or you don’t have the time to learn about investing and manage your own stocks, then the service may not be right for you.
• If you’re not sure, why not take a risk-free test drive? Simply subscribe, take a look around for 30 days, and if you’re not excited, just request your money back.

Join Motley Fool and get $110 off Stock Advisor, plus a 30-day, money-back guarantee — new members click here to unlock the promotion.

Stock Advisor Returns & Performance (Updated December 3, 2023)

Let’s get to the main question on your mind: “Will I make money by following Motley Fool’s stock recommendations?”

This is a complex question, and the answer is, of course, “it depends.”

Below I dig into Motley Fool’s complete performance history and expose numbers you can’t find anywhere else. Then I share the secret to making money from Motley Fool’s stock picks.

NOTE: If you want to see the full returns for every individual stock, you can review them by subscribing with their 30-day risk-free guarantee and then navigating to their Performance page.

First, let’s look at a high-level summary of how Motley Fool Stock Advisor has performed since inception:

Wow. That’s incredible.

Motley Fool has crushed the market by 4x over the last 19 years.

Let me briefly explain how a Foolish recommendation works:

Every Motley Fool stock has an official recommendation date and if they decide to sell, they mark an official sale date. They compare the performance of their stock vs. the S&P 500 from the recommendation date until today, or until the date they recommended selling the stock.

For example, they recommended buying Amazon on 12/17/2010 and that recommendation is still active today (no sale date). It has returned 1,332% vs. 343% for the S&P 500 (those figures change daily since the position is still open). On the other hand, they recommended Stamps.com on 05/20/2016 and then recommended subscribers sell the stock on 09/03/2021. During that period, their Stamps.com pick gained 303% vs. 144% for the S&P 500 (those figures don’t change because the position is closed).

The point is that each Motley Fool stock recommendation is measured against the S&P 500 for as long as it remains an open recommendation on their list. When the recommendation is closed, the final performance is recorded.

Motley Fool offers subscribers an in-depth explanation of how they measure performance.

UPDATED NOTE FOR 2024: The Motley Fool reorganized their site and changed how they share performance data. Now they organize performance by Active vs. Closed picks. I am keeping the charts below so you can see the full historical data. And I’m adding this new chart so you can see the latest, most up-to-date data:

For this Motley Fool review, I went through their entire history of 476 stock picks, starting back in 2002 and running through 2021.

Below are the results. Note that I batched the picks into five-year groups because the important trends are easier to see.

There are a few important insights into Motley Fool Stock Advisor’s performance:

• Since launch in 2002, their picks are beating the market by a very large margin (hundreds of percent).
• Each five-year batch of picks is also beating the market, with the older batches dramatically outperforming the newer batches. This is likely because the older stock picks have had more time to grow than the newer stocks.

Now let’s look at their wins vs. losses for each five-year batch of stock picks:

Here we uncover some really interesting trends:

• Most of their stock picks make money, with roughly 60–70% of their picks returning a positive gain.
• Most of their stock picks aren’t beating the S&P 500 (I explain why below).
• Their biggest winners are up 9,000% — 27,000% and crushing the market by an enormous margin.
• Their biggest losers are down dramatically, with some losing almost all of their value.
• Their big winners are outperforming the market by a MUCH larger margin than their big losers are underperforming the market. A big winner might gain 12,000%+, whereas a big loser can only lose, at worst, -100%.
• Over 30% of their picks have gained 100%+, and over 10% of their picks have gained 500%+.
• Even though most of their stocks aren’t beating the S&P 500, their big winners have such enormous gains that the overall portfolio is crushing the market.
• The longer-held stock picks from 2002–2011 have many big winners that have gained 100%+ and even 500%+.
• In general, the older stock picks have better performance metrics, probably because they’ve had more time to grow and it takes years for their growth stories to play out.

OK, that’s a lot of info at once!

Now let’s zoom in on some actual stock recommendations and review their performance to better understand how Motley Fool stocks make money.

Here are all 24 of their stock picks from 2016. I chose that year because Motley Fool Stock Advisor picks should be held for 5+ years to see ideal returns. By looking at 2016’s picks, we can see recommendations that are starting to reach their full potential now in 2024.

Suddenly the full picture comes into focus:

• Most of their stock picks have made money.
• Just under half of their recommendations are beating the S&P 500.
• Their individual stock recommendations are performing all over the place, with some up dramatically and others down dramatically.
• The stocks that are beating the market are outperforming by a much larger margin than the stocks that are trailing the market are underperforming.
• Overall, their recommendations are very profitable and strongly beating the market, resulting in substantially higher profits.

This is really impressive. It’s very difficult to beat the market, and such strong outperformance after just five years is absolutely incredible.

And again, we see how a few strong performers drag up the performance of the entire portfolio.

Keep this is mind: Finding mega winners is a key part of Motley Fool’s secret sauce.

For example, here are Motley Fool’s five best stock picks that are currently active (updated December 3, 2023):

• Nvidia (NVDA): 28552.4%
• Netflix (NFLX): 25460.8%
• Netflix (NFLX): 20217.1%
• Amazon (AMZN): 18984.3%
• Netflix (NFLX): 16733.0%
• Netflix (NFLX): 14503.0%
• Booking (BKNG): 13083.0%
• Netflix (NFLX): 12133.7%
• Nvidia (NVDA): 12023.0%
• Tesla (TSLA): 11210.3%

Those are just the best five. Dozens more have doubled, tripled, or quadrupled the overall stock market since recommendation.

The Stock Advisor program searches for stocks with huge upside, and has recommended 167 stocks with 100%+ returns:

All the data above points to one big takeaway about Motley Fool’s performance:

Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor bets on stocks with big upside, which means individual stock returns will be all over the place. But as a group, Stock Advisor picks tend to perform really, really well over time.

The key is that you need to hold the stocks that are big winners. And the best way to do that is to buy a portfolio of at least 25 Motley Fool recommendations.

And therein lies the big secret to making money from Motley Fool’s stock picks:

Because the service looks for stocks with huge long-term upside, it’s important to buy a diversified stock portfolio of their stocks (not just a few) to ensure you get a few big winners and achieve their strong returns.

Or, to put it another way:

If you want to outperform like they do, you have to buy and hold a decent-sized stock portfolio so you increase your chances of getting one of their big winners, which drive the market-crushing returns of the overall Stock Advisor portfolio.

If you only buy 1–2 stock tips and hold them for 6 months, anything can happen. They might double or they might get cut in half. Who knows.

But if you buy a portfolio of 25+ stocks and hold them for 5 years, you have a very good chance of beating the market.

NOTE: If you want to see Motley Fool’s 2023 returns, plus the full returns for every individual stock, you can review them by subscribing with their 30-day risk-free guarantee and then navigating to their Performance page.

Join Motley Fool and get $110 off Stock Advisor, plus a 30-day, money-back guarantee — new members click here to unlock the promotion.

What is The Motley Fool?

The Motley Fool is a financial investment advice company based in Alexandria, Virginia. They have over 700 employees across several countries.

Put simply, they create content (articles, videos, webinars, podcasts, etc.) that provides investors with advice, research, and education across a range of finance topics, with a focus on the stock market.

The company was founded in 1993 by two brothers, Tom and David Gardner. Their mission is to “make the world smarter, happier, and richer.”

In this Stock Advisor review, I’ll focus specifically on their flagship Stock Advisor service. If you’re interested, you can see all their premium Motley Fool services here.

What is Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor?

Stock Advisor is the Motley Fool’s flagship stock-picking service. It provides over 1,000,000 subscribers with two stock ideas each month, plus a wide range of investment advice, tools, and education.

While Motley Fool provides tons of free content, Stock Advisor is a premium stock picking service, meaning you need to subscribe to get access to their stock picks, investment advice, and exclusive content.

We’ll dive deep into the details of the Motley Fool Stock Advisor service below, but I’ll summarize the basics here:

• Started in 2002 and is approaching its 20-year anniversary.
• Subscribers get two Stock Advisor picks each month, one from each of Motley Fool’s founders, Tom and David Gardner.
• Stock picks come with a research report that analyzes the company and explains the investment thesis behind their “Buy” recommendation.
• They aren’t a trading platform or brokerage account; they simply provide content (articles, videos, podcasts, etc.) to help you invest better.

Let’s dig into the details of what you get with a Stock Advisor membership, including screenshots from inside the membership area.

Join Motley Fool and get $110 off Stock Advisor, plus a 30-day, money-back guarantee — new members click here to unlock the promotion.

What Do You Get With a Stock Advisor Membership?

Below I’ll cover everything you get with as Stock Advisor subscription.

Stock Recommendations

Every month, you’ll get two stock recommendations — one from each of Motley Fool’s founders, Tom and David Gardner.

Each new stock pick comes with a “Buy” report from Motley Fool analysts that includes:

• A company profile
• Key operating and financial data
• An overview of the company’s business model
• A review of company past performance
• An explanation of why Tom or David feels this is a good stock to buy now (i.e., their investment thesis)
• Risks to the investment thesis that you should keep an eye on

Here’s an example of one of their past stock write-ups. I chose an older recommendation from 2018 out of respect for today’s paying members:

Every stock they recommend comes with a detailed report like this, and they keep the report updated over time as they revisit the stock’s investment thesis.

Best Buys Now

Every month, the Motley Fool Stock Advisor team selects 10 stocks from their active recommendation list and features them as “Best Buys Now.” These are their “most timely opportunities from past recommendations.”

Starter Stocks

For new subscribers, the Motley Fool Stock Advisor program lays out 10 “Starter Stocks” to help you get started with a new portfolio:

Starter Stocks embody David’s and Tom’s investment philosophies. We think these 10 stocks have what it takes to build and strengthen any portfolio. You should feel comfortable holding these stocks for the long haul; not only do they have the strength to ride out downturns, but they’re also built for powerful growth.

Historical Stock Advisor Picks

Stock Advisor offers a complete list of all their past stock picks, including those that have been closed out (i.e., recommended to be sold).

In total, they offer you instant access to 200+ open stock recommendations, each with detailed research, news, and more.

The list shows you when each stock was recommended, the price at the time of recommendation, a link to the research note, the total return, and the return vs. the S&P 500.

Live Video Discussions of Stock Picks & Market News

One cool feature of a Motley Fool Stock Advisor service is that founders Tom and David Gardner hold private video discussions with members about their stock picks and investing methodology.

They explain their investment thesis, share research, and answer questions.

Here’s a screenshot from a recent discussion about Tom’s latest stock pick:

In addition, they offer Motley Fool Live, which covers market news, stock deep dives, special guest interviews, and more.

Stock Profiles

For all of Motley Fool’s stock ideas, you can see a stock profile, complete with past research notes, key news, financial data, charts, CAPS ratings, and more.

Interestingly, they show you where on the chart the stock was officially recommended. You can see from the green dots in the Mastercard example below that the stock has been recommended four times, and it has strongly outperformed the market.

Favorites Watchlist

You can add any of their stock recommendations to your Favorites list, either as a stock that you own or that you want to watch. That makes it easier to see all your favorite stocks together in one place outside your brokerage account and get a custom newsfeed covering just those positions.

Coming Up Next

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor service offers members two different types of calendars:

1. Upcoming stock-specific earnings and dividend events
2. Upcoming new stock pick releases

Here are their next upcoming stock recommendation release dates:

• Dec 6, 2023: Quarterly Foundational Stocks review
• Dec 13, 2023: Monthly recommendation from Team Everlasting
• Dec 22, 2023: Timely Stocks from Team Everlasting
• Jan 3, 2024: Monthly recommendation from Team Rule Breakers
• Jan 11, 2024: Timely Stocks from Team Rule Breakers

Investing Mindset & Strategy

Motley Fool offers a ton of premium content on how to cultivate a winning mindset for the stock market. Their articles cover common topics such as when to buy and sell a stock, how to find profitable stock ideas, and more.

Investing Education

The Stock Advisor program offers helpful education for new investors, including common FAQs and “getting started” questions.

The content comes in both video and written form, which makes it easy to digest, depending on your preference.

Motley Fool Podcasts

In addition to written articles, educational videos, and live broadcasts, Motley Fool offers a range of podcasts.

These discuss general investing and finance, and are freely available to anyone. They’re not just for subscribers.

Simulator Tools

Motley Fool offers some very interesting simulator tools to help you model different approaches to your investing.

The first tool shows “Probability of Positive Returns” and lets you input how many stock picks you would theoretically buy and how long you’d theoretically hold them.

Based on your inputs, the simulator tells you the likelihood of a positive return and the average return, based on Stock Advisor past performance.

Their second simulator is called the “Profit Value Simulator” and it allows you to model how much profit you could potentially earn depending on how many stocks you theoretically buy and how long you theoretically hold them.

The purpose of both of these tools is to help model different performance scenarios before you add stocks to your brokerage account. The more of their recommendations you buy and the longer you hold, the higher your chance of success.

Allocation Tools

As a Motley Fool subscriber, you have access to a powerful allocation tool to help determine your ideal portfolio allocation.

You set your investment time horizon and risk tolerance and their tool provides a sample allocation across bonds / cash, stocks, ETFs, and mutual fund.

Within each major category (for example, ETFs), they provide a list of example investments to help you get started.

Special Reports Library

The Motley Fool is known for analyzing mega trends (e.g., crypto, marijuana, artificial intelligence, self-driving cars, etc.) and finding the stocks that will profit from them.

While they often tease these reports to prospects as part of their marketing, you get full access with a Stock Advisor subscription.

Motley Fool Community

The Motley Fool has a robust and active investment community that uses the company’s forums to discuss investing strategy, tools, education, and, of course, official monthly stock picks.

They also have a CAPS community where investors can rate stocks and follow top-performing peers

Additional Features

In addition, there are a range of other features and tools that come along with the Motley Fool services. I’ll cover them briefly here:

• Top Movers Today: Shows the six biggest movers today (up or down) in their portfolio. This helps you identify any stocks that may be on the move and need closer attention.
• 5 and 3: For their official stock picks, they provide a “5 and 3” report which covers 5 potential green flags and 3 potential red flags for the stock. An example green flag might discuss the company’s recent high-value partnership, and an example red flag might discuss their growing debt load.
• Monday Briefing: Every Monday, they send subscribers a Monday Briefing which is a “round-up of recent updates on Stock Advisor stocks, plus a schedule of what to expect in the days ahead.” This helps you stay on top of both the market and the open stock recommendations.
• News and updates: If one of their stock picks has a major news event or update, the team will publish a summary along with their analysis so you know exactly what happened.
• 10% Promise: If one of their stock recommendations rises or falls by 10% in a single market day, the team will publish an explanation of what happened so you’re not caught off guard.
• Stock screener: Motley Fool offers a stock screener to help you filter through their stock picks. You can filter by company size, their conviction in the stock tip, sector, volatility, yield, and several other proprietary filters.
• Live customer service: If you have questions or need help with the service, the Motley Fool support team is easy to reach by email or you can call and speak to a real person on the phone.

Join Motley Fool and get $110 off Stock Advisor, plus a 30-day, money-back guarantee — new members click here to unlock the promotion.

What Are The Motley Fool Stock Picks Like?

Motley Fool specializes in high-growth stock picks with long-term upside. Their average recommendation has tripled the market, returning 334% vs. 108% for the S&P 500. At $89/year, investors who want a portfolio of buy-and-hold growth stocks with investing education will find value with Stock Advisor.

While the Motley Fool Stock Advisor service recommends a wide range of stocks, they do have a clear preference for high-quality growth stocks and blue chip stocks. Most of their picks are from the Technology, Healthcare, Industrial, Consumer, and Financial sectors.

During this Fool Stock Advisor review, I found they recommend dozens of large cap and mid cap stocks, but very few small cap stocks. They encourage members to stay fully invested in high-quality stocks over the long-term.

Most companies are based in the U.S., but they do recommend some international companies that are traded on U.S. markets.

Here are a few types of stocks they do NOT typically recommend:

• Day-trading stocks: They recommend stocks that will grow over the next 3–5 years, and beyond. They don’t recommend day trading or swing trading stocks.
• Penny stocks: The team is “restricted in its recommendations to companies with market caps in excess of $200 million and at least $400,000 in average daily volume.” That means no penny stocks.
• Defensive stocks: You won’t find many defensive stocks (such as utilities or REITs) among their stock portfolio. They prefer stocks with strong growth potential.
• High dividend stocks: While a few of their recommendations do pay dividends, they generally don’t pick stocks with high dividends.

Another way to learn about their investment philosophy is to hear from founders Tom and David Gardner directly.

Here David Gardner discusses how he finds multibagger stocks (stocks that return 100% multiple times over):

This video gives you a behind-the-scenes look at the Motley Fool team and their headquarters:

And this video is a podcast discussion of what founder David Gardner has learned after 200 months of stock recommendations:

How Much Does Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor Cost?

The Stock Advisor service costs $199 per year. However, Motley Fool is currently running a special promotion for new members:

Join Motley Fool and get $110 off Stock Advisor, plus a 30-day, money-back guarantee — new members click here to unlock the promotion.

Who Should Subscribe to Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor?

Anyone can subscribe to the Stock Advisor program, and they say the stock picking service is good for all investors, from beginners up to institutional professionals.

Should You Join Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor?

Based on my research for this Fool Stock Advisor review and my personal experience, I think you would get a lot out of the service if you:

• Like getting several high-quality stock ideas every month.
• Are a relative beginner who wants to learn the strategy, tactics, mindset, and psychology behind successful investing.
• Want to learn more about how to analyze a stock (it’s a fantastic place to learn basic stock research and analysis).
• Want a short list of high-potential stocks that you can filter through and hand pick your own portfolio.
• Want to find growth stocks with the potential for big long-term upside.
• Want a steady stream of research on new mega trends and the stocks that could profit from them.
• Want to dedicate at least some of your portfolio to individual stock picks.
• Are a long-term investor who is willing to hold stocks for 3–5 years or more.
• Want to try and beat the market over time.

Should You Skip Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor?

Based on my research and experience, I think you might not like the service if you:

• Want defensive or high-dividend stocks.
• Want low-volatility stocks.
• Want recommendations for a set portfolio of 20–30 stocks with clear dollar / percent allocations.
• Don’t want to allocate time to researching, buying, and managing individual stocks.
• Don’t enjoy stock market investing.
• Don’t want to learn more about investing.
• Are an active investor who would prefer to day trade or swing trade stocks (although their stocks could be used in this way).
• Prefer to hold ETFs or mutual funds and don’t want to buy individual stocks.

Put simply, the Stock Advisor service appeals to a wide range of investors who are interested in high-quality stocks with big growth potential over time. Plus, if you want to learn how to analyze stocks and invest wisely, they’re a fantastic place to get started.

Join Motley Fool and get $110 off Stock Advisor, plus a 30-day, money-back guarantee — new members click here to unlock the promotion.

Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor: Pros & Cons

To get a better understanding of the service for my Motley Fool review, I read through dozens of real customer reviews to discover what subscribers liked and didn’t like:

Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor: Pros

• They offer a steady stream of two stock picks every month (this is the main reason people join).
• They offer a full library of all past stock ideas, including those that are still open and closed.
• They offer curated lists of “Best Buy Now” stocks and “Starter Stocks” to help new members get started.
• They offer transparent performance, sharing the stock recommendation date, purchase price, return, and relative return vs. the S&P for every stock pick dating back to their launch in 2002.
• They have a long history of picking big winners and beating the market.
• They monitor their stock recommendations for big changes and proactively share important updates with members.
• There’s lots of education designed to help beginner and intermediate investors grow their investing skills and profits.
• Stock research and investing education are in plain english and not complex Wall Street speak.
• Founders Tom and David Gardner are fun and relatable, and have decades of stock picking experience and wisdom.
• They offer many different types of content, including articles, videos, conference calls, webinars, interactive polls, podcasts, and more.
• They offer dozens of mega-trend reports and other research as part of the subscription.
• They offer tools to help members build a diversified and profitable portfolio.
• The Motley Fool website is modern and easy to use.
• Members can receive important updates via email or text message.
• Their customer service is responsive by email and phone.
• Motley Fool offers a 30-day, money-back guarantee to new subscribers.
• Their annual subscription fee is relatively low compared to other stock recommendation services.

Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor: Cons

• Motley Fool sends lots of marketing / promotional emails, which can get overwhelming (but you can turn them off).
• They focus mostly on growth stocks with big upside potential, which means they don’t cover defensive stocks, value stocks, dividend stocks, etc.
• Because they focus mostly on growth stocks, they don’t pay much attention to valuation and often recommend stocks with high valuations.
• They don’t consider any technical analysis when making stock recommendations, meaning entry points may not be ideal, even if the underlying company is a solid long-term investment.
• Stock picks are sometimes trading near all-time highs, which can feel risky to some members.
• They don’t offer any fair-value price targets or “Buy Up To” price cutoffs for their stock recommendations.
• They don’t take profit on big winners and instead just let them run.
• Stock tips aren’t guaranteed and some go down (come on, guys — no one can guarantee stock market performance!).
• New stock ideas sometimes surge temporarily right after the recommendation is published because lots of members buy in.
• They’re committed to recommending two stocks each month on a rigid schedule, regardless of whether that timing is an ideal investment strategy.
• They don’t have a bear-market strategy, and simply hold through any big market declines and continue to recommend new stocks.
• Buying just a few stocks doesn’t offer the diversity of an ETF or mutual fund.

That sums up the pros and cons of the Stock Advisor program, based on feedback from dozens of real users.

Join Motley Fool and get $110 off Stock Advisor, plus a 30-day, money-back guarantee — new members click here to unlock the promotion.

Is the Motley Fool Legit? Or Is Motley Fool a Scam Ripoff?

The Motley Fool is a legitimate service and not a scam or ripoff. They have decades of investing experience, over a million loyal customers, and they offer new subscribers a 30-day, 100% money-back guarantee.

I’ve done a lot of research into The Motley Fool and I’ve used the service myself. I can say with total confidence that the Stock Advisor service is legit and not a scam or ripoff.

Now, the Motley Fool services may not be right for everyone, which is totally understandable. But that doesn’t mean they’re a scam.

The company has been around for a long time, they’re very transparent about their pricing and services, they’re very transparent about the performance of their stock recommendations, and they provide lots of education to help subscribers succeed in the market.

Also, they offer a 30-day, 100% money-back guarantee — so it’s not like they take your money and run. Members have plenty of time to look around before committing.

I’ve researched and tested hundreds of investing services, and Motley Fool has far better practices, features, and ethics than most players out there.

That said, Motley Fool does have some unhappy reviews floating around online. I see some frustrated customers leaving angry reviews calling them a “scam” or “ripoff.”

Why is that?

I think it comes down to two main factors:

• Marketing / promotion overload
• Volatile stock picks that go down

On the first point, there’s not much to say: It’s true that Motley Fool’s marketing department sends out a lot of promotional emails.

But here’s the thing: If you’re not interested, just click “Unsubscribe” or adjust your email settings on the Motley Fool website. They allow you to control your marketing preferences. It’s not that complicated — if you don’t like it, just turn it off.

So let’s look at the second point: Some subscribers get frustrated with volatile stock tips that go down.

If I were to summarize a typical frustrated customer review, it would look something like this:

“I subscribed to the service and bought their recommendation for XYZ stock. It declined 25% and I lost thousands of dollars. What a rip off!”

I understand that frustration. The truth is, I’ve been there before.

But I’d suggest this type of customer frustration usually comes from misaligned expectations and not using Motley Fool’s service correctly.

Here’s why…

Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor specializes in finding high-quality growth stocks with big upside potential.

And they’re really good at it. They’ve picked a lot of incredible individual winners (such as Amazon, Netflix, and Tesla), and boast 150+ stock picks that have returned 100% or more.

The problem is that some frustrated investors aren’t using the service as it’s intended. Instead of buying a portfolio of stocks, they buy only 1–2 stocks and hold for just a few months before giving up. That’s not going to work.

Let me explain why…

If you put all your money in one stock recommendation and it was their original Amazon stock recommendation in 2002, you’d be up a breathtaking 21,320%. You’d be writing Tom and David Gardner a gushing thank-you note every year from your own private yacht.

On the other hand, if you put all your money in their Krispy Kreme Doughnuts recommendation just a year later in 2003, you would’ve lost 89.7% of your money over the next two years. You’d be writing Tom and David a very different kind of letter.

If you buy just a few stocks, your short-term performance is very unpredictable. But if you buy a basket of Stock Advisor picks, your long-term performance is actually very predictable.

To be honest, I think some frustrated Motley Fool subscribers may have had the wrong expectations and approached their investing a bit recklessly.

Rather than build a diversified portfolio of Motley Fool stocks that lived within a larger diversified portfolio of investments, I’m guessing they put a bunch of money into a few stocks they fell in love with, and then got frustrated when those stocks went down in the short term.

I think if the frustrated subscribers had instead bought 25 stocks and held them for five years, they may have a very different opinion of the service.

If you’re looking for a curated list of high-quality growth stocks with big upside potential, and you’re willing to put in the time and effort to build a diversified portfolio of stocks, I think Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor is a fantastic service that can offer market-beating profits.

Join Motley Fool and get $110 off Stock Advisor, plus a 30-day, money-back guarantee — new members click here to unlock the promotion.

Is The Motley Fool a Pump & Dump Scheme?

The Motley Fool is not a pump & dump scheme. They have decades of experience, over a million loyal customers, high transparency, and restrictions on employee trading.

A few people online have questioned whether Motley Fool is a pump-and-dump scheme. Put simply, they wonder if Motley Fool employees are hyping stocks in order to collect profits in their own personal accounts.

It’s extremely unlikely that Motley Fool is a pump-and-dump scheme for a few simple reasons:

• Pump and dump schemes work best with very thinly traded securities that can be easily manipulated. They only recommends stocks with market caps in excess of $200 million and at least $400,000 in average daily volume. And looking through their picks, nearly all their recommendations are sizable mid-cap or large-cap stocks.
• Even though they have hundreds of thousands of subscribers, the trading volume in these stocks is so large it would be difficult for Motley Fool to boost the price and keep it boosted over time.
• Their biggest winners are stocks like Amazon and Netflix, which are each up more than 20,000% since the initial recommendation. That incredible gain occurred over many years (or decades) and had nothing to do with Motley Fool “pumping” the stock.
• While I’ve read anecdotes online that there is sometimes a small jump in the share price of their new stock recommendation, that effect doesn’t last very long.
• They have been recommending stocks since 2002. If they were running a giant scheme and defrauding millions of retail investors, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) would’ve regulated them by now.
• The Motley Fool has trading rules that prevent its employees and contractors from profiting unfairly from their stock picks.

Pump and dump companies tend to be shady and rely on high-pressure sales tactics to get you to buy their unknown stocks.

The Motley Fool doesn’t use any pump-and-dump practices and provides subscribers with complete transparency on their stock recommendations.

Bottom Line: Is Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor Worth the Money?

If you’re a beginner or intermediate investor looking for high-quality growth and blue chip stocks to hold for the long term, and/or you want to learn how to invest wisely, Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor is a fantastic service.

If I had to summarize my Motley Fool review, here’s what I’d say:

• If you want to discover high-quality growth stocks with huge upside potential over the coming 3–5+ years, and you want to learn how to invest wisely along the way, then the program is absolutely worth it.
• Motley Fool has shown a remarkable ability to pick stocks with huge upside, and a basket of their stocks tends to beat the market by large margins over time.
• If you’re an advanced investor, day trader, extremely risk-averse, not interested in growth stocks, or you don’t have the time to learn about investing and manage your own stocks, then the service may not be right for you.
• Either way, they offer a 30-day guarantee, so you really don’t have anything to lose. Why not just try it and see for yourself?

From a subscription cost perspective, I think the Stock Advisor service is actually pretty cheap.

At $89 per year, all you need to justify the subscription fee is one stock pick that earns you $89 each year. Given their historical performance, that’s pretty easy.

Think of it this way:

If Motley Fool’s stock picks, tools, and education help you earn 10% on a $1,000 investment, or 1% on a $10,000 investment, then the subscription has paid for itself.

They have a long track record of picking stocks with big upside, and a basket of their stocks has a high likelihood of beating the market by a wide margin over time.

At $89 per year, it’s pretty darn cheap compared to the value of profitable stock picks and actionable investing education.

If you’re still not sure, why not take a risk-free test drive? Simply subscribe, take a look around for 30 days, and if you’re not excited, just request your money back.

Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor is a high-quality, low-cost, easy-to-use investing service with an impressive performance history — so give it a shot and see if it can help make you “smarter, happier, and richer.”

Join Motley Fool and get $110 off Stock Advisor, plus a 30-day, money-back guarantee — new members click here to unlock the promotion.