Motley Fool – David Gardner retirement from stock pickingLetter just sent out that David will not be picking stocks anymore. 3 of the 4 monthly stocks in Stock Advisor and Rule Breakers were David. MF saying that it has been a team effort with analysts doing a lot of the work lately and don’t worry, the team will continue to give us great stocks. Any comments or thoughts??
This is a discussion topic or guest posting submitted by a Stock Gumshoe reader. The content has not been edited or reviewed by Stock Gumshoe, and any opinions expressed are those of the author alone.
I preferred David’s communication style to Tom’s but it’s not like SA/RB stocks are super risky microcaps but usually well-established companies with stellar outlooks, i.e. low to medium risk stocks. It’s also true that it’s been a team effort for a long while over there so the decision should not have too much of an impact on the entry-level service picks.
On a side note, does anyone know why CLOUD related stocks took a hit yesterday i.e. FSLY, NET, TWLO, TTD, TDOC, DOCU etc. Looked like there was a large selloff. And today they all recovered. Could that be related to jobs report that missed by a mile?
While he did offer 3 picks over the two services, if you look at the truly NEW stock picks given, he only gave 1 new pick a month and that was in Rule Breakers. The other “New” RB stock he selected was a rerun of a previous pick and his SA pick wasn’t guaranteed to be new and could be a rerun as well.
I have the feeling he hasn’t been a true lead picker for a few years now and regularly relied on the support of his team in both services. Plus, if you look at his percentage in beating the S&P, it’s mostly from his winners a long time ago. Recently I can’t say I’m too impressed with their ability to find winners.
If you look at DG’s picks, when he recommended a stock a second, third or fourth time, the chances of that stock doubling, tripling or more was far greater than other picks. When DG re-recommended a stock, I loaded up on it. That strategy has benefited me tremendously. While still very good, Tom’s record pales by comparison. I am going much more conservative on my MF investments now that DG is not the lead stock picker.
I subscribe to two Motley Fool services, Stock Advisor and Rule Breakers. So without David picking stocks any longer, I’m worried about how successful their picks will be. David has been the “Cathie Wood” for The Motley Fool in terms of his impressive ability to assess opportunities for growth stocks.
I’m not ready to cancel my subscriptions yet and will give them a chance to prove they can do well without him. But I won’t have nearly the confidence I did in their selections.
The difference in DG and CW is DG has been stellar for decades. CW is a relative come lately. Many of her picks mirrored DG’s and were mostly later in timing and more risky in magnitude. I’ve made a killing following DG’s advice and betting big on his re-recommendations.