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Million Dollar Portfolio (defunct)

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Duane Strickland
Duane Strickland
January 28, 2009 9:36 am

The goal of the Motley Fool Million Dollar Portfolio is to outperform the S&P500 by 15% per year. MDP started with One Million Dollars and have invested most of the money already. They advertise to subscribers what they are buying, what percentage of the portfolio they will use and announce that they will buy between 3 and 30 days. The subscriber should mimic their moves to get the same results. They are currently close to the results of the S&P500. I joined in October 2008 when they had already lost around 30%. I purchased most of their recommendations (a couple of the stocks I already owned from another service MF has) and am currently losing 28% (not counting 2 positions I have closed already with comparable losses). They seem to be reluctant to sell any stocks. Out of 22 different stocks that I purchased only 1 is currently gaining by about 7%. My losers are down as much as 82%. There are several financial stocks involved. The service is expensive and I have no confidence in it, therefore I cancelled it last week.

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Lucca 27
Guest
Lucca 27
January 31, 2009 10:33 am

I subscribe to PRO, Stock Advisor, Million Dollar Portfolio, Global Gains, Hidden Gems and Rule Breakers and will post this review on all the sites. In general I found the letters useful for ideas in an up market, but not terribly helpful in our current down market. I found some excellent companies like DWSN, EDU & CTRP that I would not otherwise have looked at. Sell recommendations usually come too late and analysts tend to fall in love with stocks and catch “falling knives”. For example the repeated recommendations of Select Comfort, Irwin Financial, First Marblehead all the way down and then the final sell recommendation at much lower prices that had been recommended a few months earlier. There seems to be a reluctance to say do nothing and wait. Recent recommendation after recommendation is substantially under water.

In general Fool is an excellent source of information on a wide variety of financial subjects and the authors seem to be competent and professional. “The Boards” can be a useful source of information and opinion, however slogging through them is tedious because there are a lot of junk postings wherein people tell the reader what they are buying (not why) and criticizing other posters, a situation that breaks into a brushfire that overwhelms a posting site for a day or two.

Unfortunately the web sites for each of the portfolios, while consistent on a stand alone basis, are a total mess when one subscribes to several newsletters. Each letter ranks performance differently. No letter as far as I can ascertain includes dividends in calculation returns, a substantial flaw in assessing the performance of a stock.

The “cafertia” approach of the newsletters is also annoying – the same stock may be recommended in two different newsletters and checking the boards requires going to three different boards to get updates. The non-subscriber board and then each of the two different subscriber boards.

All in all I do not believe that the price of any individual newsletter, each of which is a niche letter, is worth it unless one is a substantial investor, as am I, although far less substantial than a year ago. I am not going to renew any of my newsletters, except PRO which I like because it discusses options.

All in all Fool is pretty good, but it presents a conundrum. The service is intended to educate unsophisticated investors, at which it does a good job, but it is so expensive as a percentage of assets that unless a subscriber has several hundred thousand of dollars to invest they would do better in a basket of index funds. I would recommend that a new investor without a substantial portfolio subscribe to one of the services for a year or two to get some education and then go on to one of the many free sites that provide all sorts of ideas and their own boards.

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L.L
L.L
February 25, 2009 7:57 pm

This was by far the worst of the MF publications I subscribed to. The premise sounded very promising, taking the best from all their newsletters, but proved to be a resounding dud. And an expensive one, too. I got out after 6 months with nothing to show for it. They charged $ 500. I do wish I had researched subscribers’ feedback before I committed to any of the newsletters and I am grateful for having found this web site.

Michael
Michael
June 12, 2009 5:04 pm

I joined this service when it first started around November 2007, just as the market was peaking. The million dollars that they started with is now down to $664,000, which is about 5% better than the S&P 500 did during the same period. However, this is factoring in dividends.

I really like the Fools, their letters are optimistic and informative, but if this is their best of the best service, I am not impressed. Only one of the stocks that I purchased based on their recommendations made any money and most of the others I purchased dropped 30-90%. Factoring in the $1,000 a year subscription and stock buy and sell transaction fees, I would have been much better off just buying an S&P 500 index fund or a few diversified high dividend paying stocks.

I suspect that they will significantly outperform the S&P 500 when the economy recovers and we are definitely into a bear market. As for me, I will not be renewing my expensive subscription when I can throw darts darts just as well they do.

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Not seeing honesty
Guest
Not seeing honesty
June 19, 2009 12:58 pm

I subscribed when the MDP started and kept with it for a full year. I had in the past tried out other Fool newsletters. This one was supposed to give you the best of all of their other newsletters combined.

I wish I could like and trust the Motley Fool. In reality I’d be fooling myself if I agreed that the emperor was wearing clothes. As someone else pointed out, their articles are often directly contradictory and vague. “It could be this way” or “it could be that way” – clever and sarcastic in style at times.

The proof is in the pudding… and both myself and my son had sub-optimal experiences with Fool recommendations. I was trying to convince my son of the wiseness of doing DCA monthly instead of leaving his money earning pennies in the bank. I told him he could trust the Motley Fool and to study it and choose some of their picks. Not only did my “ok he’s young and naive” son have very high losses – but the Fool’s Million Dollars isn’t a Million Dollars anymore. In fact it never got above a million once.

Pretty soon after they were suffering the terrible losses they started trying to get all of us to join Pro instead. Going directly against their professed buy and hold strategy – they wanted us to pay a lot more to get sure-fire returns by doing market timing which they have always preached against. I think desparate to win instead of lose, they couldn’t stand to see those shorts / options opportunities going buy. It was the only way out of their embarrassment and failure.

But once again while they have always professed to be advising the little guy… they are really only aiming for the fatcats…. what small investor would they advise to take $1500 or $2000 out of their portfolio and spend it annually on a newsletter???? They are always explaining how various fees would eat up your profits…. where is their honesty in explaining what their newsletter costs do to your profits?

And… now a lame message if you try to enter the MDP website… “due to overwhelming demand” there will be no more subscriptions allowed. Pretty much the height of dishonesty there. So we can all stop pretending that fool.com is a friend of the consumer. How about a message like “due to how poorly the MDP has performed – not really up to our standards… god a bear market sucks! – we aren’t letting anyone look at it! In fact we are refunding everyone who paid, giving them a credit toward any other fool products they want.”

That would be honest.

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J-son
Guest
J-son
December 13, 2009 8:32 am

I had subscribed between Dec 1, 2007 and Jan/Feb 2008. Surely few predicted the chaos of the markets during these times, but I can say that the Fool’s picks: CSE, AIB, LM, CX, among others are the worst performing members of my portfolio and have hemorraged value @ at a rate of roughly 2-3x what the S&P will bear.

While I am not sure that they are still holding MDP events with companies they intend to add to the portfolio, it seems prescient that their first conference was with Eugene Sheehy @AIB in Ireland. And from the numerous articles/posts that followed, whatever snake oil he was selling, they bought it by truckload. Unfortunately, so did I….

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Jon W
Guest
Jon W
December 15, 2009 8:41 am

What a waste of money for this subscription to MDP. All hype to deliver little better than S&P returns since inception. Joined at the start and glad I only tracked the suggested portfolio and never invested real dollars. Granted 2008 was a tough year, but I did much better on my own with mutual funds. Save your money and buy a dart board you couldn’t do much worse. Of course I could always buy additional services from MF which seems to be offered on a regular basis. A little honesty would be nice!

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Mark P
Guest
Mark P
February 22, 2010 2:38 pm

I subscribed when the service started as many of the previous reviewrs did. It was a trainwreck from day one. Granted the market was entering a bear market at the time, the simple fact that the MF had no clue as to the risks in the number of retail and financial service companies that the recommended was very poor. They totally missed the boat on a number of occasions and when I cancelled after the first year the only stock I had any appreciable gains on was BWLD. Even with the market tumbling they continued to buy rather than holding cash and seeing what would shake out. The fact that they used no stop loss or downside protection pretty much goes against what they preach and a number of their picks are still down 50% + even after the recovery of the past year.

In addition they continue to peddle additonal products that as one reviewer noted go against everything the MF preaches.

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lanb
Guest
lanb
February 27, 2010 1:28 pm

I originally subscribed to Hidden Gems and then switched over to MDP. It started with big fanfare amid the biggest bull market.
It lost money like every other newsletter over the past 2 years.
The premise was to get the best of all newsletters with subscription to this one newsletter – kind of like fund of funds.
Given the inconsistency in each of their newsletter, this one magnifies it. Overall, they are beating the S&P by 1% or so, but i think anyone would be better of just investing in broad market index etfs.

Also, the fool has become a marketing machine churning out teaser emails and promise of sky high returns in the past 2 years. When the hype becomes more than the substance/delivery it is time to walk away 🙂

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Sarah Spitz
Guest
Sarah Spitz
May 29, 2010 1:32 pm

Well I lost money of course, but at least they sent me my $99 back as they promised (I’d forgotten the promise). As to customer service, I must’ve missed the first notice about selling of the original purchases and buying something else, and now that FDS is tanking again, I’ve only lost lost lost money. I am an UNsophisticated investor and I feel like they promised more than they can deliver. I am very grateful for the Stock Gumshoe so I can read through the hype they present. I’d like to see a review of their upcoming mutual fund. They expect to reach $100 million by June; wonder if they can beat the market. Million Dollar Portfolio was not a good omen, in my book.

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Doug
Guest
Doug
June 24, 2010 6:34 am

Allied Irish Bank should tell you everything you need to know about them. They actually flew to Ireland to check the books during the financial crisis and they said everything was great. Meanwhile stock price goes from $55 to a now $2.50. Give me a break Fools. I gave them 5 stars for consistency, consistently BAD.

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piotrsky
Member
piotrsky
August 22, 2020 12:50 pm
Reply to  Doug

Absolutely, I got caught in that, too. They went to Ireland to be wined and dined (and what else?) and vouched for an outstanding investment.
Outstanding, yes. For them.
Moreover I remember that they a a squad of “commentators” which would menacingly attack whoever dared to express any criticism. A total fr…d in my book

swany
Guest
swany
June 29, 2010 9:55 pm

I have purchased most of the MF offerings at one time or another. All were a bust.
MDP was the worst. I lost a bundle. The Irish bank proves they don’t know what they are doing.

piotrsky
Member
piotrsky
August 22, 2020 12:51 pm
Reply to  swany

Well, they actually know what they are doing…

Pirgnori
Guest
Pirgnori
November 20, 2010 3:12 pm

I was just about to subscribe at a sale price of $599 but, after reading these reviews, fuggedabout it. On my own, I’m up 12%. I’ve done well following James Stewart of Smart Money, Fred Hickey’s The High Tech Strategist and Barron’s.

Thanks, all, for posting your reviews; they saved me $599 and who knows how much investing losses if I followed MDP.

Jim
Guest
Jim
March 16, 2011 12:16 pm

I subscribed May 2008 and don’t fully use the service except the basic buy sell info since I haven’t had the time to be really involved. My MDP portfolio (originally $31,000) is up an average 9.3% per year after all expenses as of Mar 2011. The portfolio is too small for the $600 per year fee, but in this case has been worth it. Note: I don’t have enough experience to properly assign the rating stars.

Hans
Guest
Hans
May 19, 2011 1:46 pm

Great fun to read the posts. That’s really worthwile. The picks just have not been what I expected. No in depth analyses of the companies and too volatile to my taste.
But really, no regrets to have signed up. Just one year will be fine for me.

Chris
Guest
Chris
August 19, 2011 7:19 pm

I subscribed to Ready Made Millionaire and notice that it disappeared and I was given a subscription to the Million Dollar Portfolio. Having a short attention span, I enjoyed the research the Fools did on stocks and used them as my “investment advisor.” On average, most of the picks I got from them are up. That means some are down.

However, I got a shock when my subscription expired and I wanted to renew MDP. I was told it would be $999. I called and was told they’d give it to me for $799. That’s too for the amount of money in my portfolio that I had dedicated to the Fools. Also, I had a subscription to their Stock Advisor. Originally cost me $149. They’re willing to renew it for $199. I said, “That’s more than I paid when I first signed up.” The guy on the phone said I paid the price for a new subscription the $199 is the price for current members. I said, “It should be the other way around.” So now they have none of my money.

But I miss the information and I’m looking for a substitute.

I may try the Stock Advisor again. But I do think they are overpriced and for the money, you get a lot of Foolish spam.

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figuringitout
Member
figuringitout
February 26, 2013 12:41 pm

The culture of this service is admirable. The discussion boards are active. The principal staff members take the time to address member concerns and regularly post in a timely fashion and in great detail about price movements and strategic developments in every stock that they recommend. This provides a bit of consolation to those people who are losing money on the underwhelming stock picks. Nearly everything that I have bought, following their suggestions, has declined, and from the boards, I can see that many have declined more drastically for earlier investors. Of course, they have also made some successful picks (out of their 30 or so selections); but these are not the majority of their portfolio.

I was disappointed that the service opts for so many known and followed entities (like Microsoft, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway and Linkedin, for example), instead of leaning on more obscure companies that users might not already have explored on their own.

I am intrigued by the potential of some of their riskier selections and believe that there may be some real gains in the future; but the bulk of their picks seem conservative and seem to have performed unexceptionally over the life of the service. Certainly, the investment philosophy of the service is heavily biased towards buy and hold and members are constantly encouraged to hang tight during disappointing and sustained periods of loss.

There is, additionally, a bit of resentment, within the MF universe regarding which services receive which recommendations. Different services seem to advertise 100% access to certain investors, yet forums indicate a selective portioning of recommendations to one service or another. Misleading customers doesn’t lead to good reviews.

Nevertheless, when it comes time to renew, I would consider it–despite the ridiculous cost–primarily because it is the only investment “community” to which I belong. I enjoy that someone who is committed to their recommendations will usually respond in person to my questions (and suggestions). The price of MF services is best considered as a form of community dues and not so much a way of participating in gains–at least where the MDP is concerned.

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