Author/Editor
Tom Garder
Publisher
Motley Fool
Description
Edited by Tom Gardner, tracks a real life stock portfolio of the Motley Fool’s money.
Overall Rating
Rating: 3.5/5. From 8 votes.
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3.2
Rating from 33 votes
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Investment Performance
Rating from 9 votes
Rating: 3.0/5. From 9 votes.
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Quality Of Writing/Analysis
Rating from 8 votes
Rating: 3.8/5. From 8 votes.
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Value For Price
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Rating: 2.3/5. From 8 votes.
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Customer Service
Rating from 8 votes
Rating: 3.5/5. From 8 votes.
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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… Read More »
Sounds like Finavera again — I wrote about it a few times on the main site.
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… Read More »
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.
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… Read More »
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… Read More »
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… Read More »
This appears to happen only on Internet Explorer 6, maybe even only in Windows 2000 — I can’t test either one very well, please let me know if it’s still happening.
But their picks cost me thousands.
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!
Actually, I’m more of a Big Bend Ranch girl. I rode a camel there once, following the route of the Texas Camel Cavalry (pre Civil War). Also love Hueco Tanks, near your neck of the woods in El Paso.
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… Read More »
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… Read More »
Thanks Wayne
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… Read More »
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.
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.
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.
I agree, to some extent — stock picks cannot be copywrited, nor can ideas, but obviously it wouldn’t be kosher to re-distribute the bulk of these newsletters without permission — and certainly there are ethical concerns that don’t touch on the legality of sharing ideas. Digests distribute sample picks and commentary from newsletters, and Hulbert does very rigorous tracking (but can only handle about 200 newsletters, of thousands). I can’t imagine developing a tracking system as sophisticated or comprehensive, but thanks for the idea (and I am working on some ways that folks can better share opinions about the newsletters… Read More »
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.
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.
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… Read More »
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… Read More »