Motley Fool Stock Advisor is a subscription-based service that provides the perfect middle ground for investing. You get expert stock recommendations and investment advice without the hard work; you simply need to decide which stocks to buy and sell in your own portfolio per their recommendations.
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Motley Fool Stock Advisor is a stock-picking service created by experts at The Motley Fool. Members receive monthly stock picks and analyses along with other investing recommendations and resources. The service is ideal for long-term investing and best for intermediate investors.
- Stock recommendations provided monthly
- Access to history of past stock picks
- Additional investing tools and resources
- Everyone gets the same picks at the same time
- May be receive additional upsells
What is Motley Fool Stock Advisor?
Motley Fool Stock Advisor is a premium subscription service from The Motley Fool, an investing and advising platform trusted by over a million investors.
With membership, you get two stock picks every month along with an in-depth analysis of why Motley Fool experts chose each stock and why you should invest in them. You’ll also receive other lists of active and past stock recommendations as well as community and educational resources. On average, stocks from The Motley Fool Stock Advisor do very well and outperform many stock market indexes.
Stock Advisor differs from other services because it is not an investment account and it does not buy stocks or manage your portfolio for you. Rather, it provides you with expert-curated stock picks and the information you need to decide if you want to buy them yourself. It’s created for investors who want to keep adding individual stocks to their portfolios over time.
Pros & cons
Pros
- Monthly stock recommendations — Instead of having to seek out new investments yourself, The Motley Fool Stock Advisor tells you exactly where to put your money with justification.
- Past stock picks — You’ll also get access to past stock picks given to subscribers. At any time, you can go back and see why these were chosen and purchase any of them.
- 24/7 monitoring — In addition to telling you when to buy stocks, Motley Fool Stock Advisor will also recommend when to sell. With 24/7 monitoring, you’ll be notified of what’s happening with stocks that have been recommended to you so you can decide right away if it’s time to sell.
- Additional tools and resources — Message boards, market deals, news feeds, and live customer service are just some of the additional features folded into the annual subscription.
Cons
- Everyone gets the same picks — By subscribing to The Motley Fool Stock Advisor, you join over a million other people also counting on The Motley Fool for stock picks. Everyone gets the same recommendations at the same time.
- You have to do the work yourself — This service doesn’t invest for you. You’ll have to take the time to execute on recommendations in another account and there may be times when you delay and lose out on opportunities.
- Additional upsells — After you join, Motley Fool will push other services and newsletters. While these might be valuable, it can be frustrating if you don’t want to pay for more or don’t want to be bothered.
How does The Motley Fool Stock Advisor work?
Once sign up for The Motley Fool Stock Advisor and you’re a member, you’ll get exclusive stock picks from The Motley Fool co-founders Tom and David Gardner every month, sent right to your email. You can click for a full description of why each stock was selected and more information about the company.
Besides the monthly stock picks, there are other types of premium content you’ll be able to access using your Motley Fool account. Here are the main products within The Motley Fool Stock Advisor service:
Stock tips
As a member, you get stock tips every single month — chosen directly by The Motley Fool Stock Advisor team.
They’ll send you a detailed report about each stock, including the company’s risk profile, why they chose the stock, and, best of all, 24/7 monitoring of that stock.
So, if they recommend the stock to you and then some time in the future think that you should get out, they’ll send you an alert. It’s up to you to act on either side of that recommendation.
The monthly stock tips are the bread and butter of this service and the biggest reason you should consider signing up. So stock recommendations from market experts make up the bulk of what you pay for.
Top 10 Rankings
The Top 10 Rankings are 10 timely buys picked on current market opportunities. They’re chosen out of a list of 300 different stocks and updated regularly. Like the stock picks, you can only get this by paying for Motley Fool Stock Advisor.
Starter Stocks
Starter Stocks are a list of foundational stock recommendations for new and experienced investors. This list is helpful for rounding out your investing strategy, especially if you’re new to this, but these picks are the same for everybody. This list changes monthly, so you’ll know that it’s fresh once you sign up.
Suppose you’re just starting to build and diversify a portfolio and want to start with a small number of high-quality stocks. In that case, signing up for Motley Fool Stock Advisor and checking out the Starter Stocks list is a step in the right direction.
Community and investing resources
Finally, you’ll get access to educational resources and things to help you improve as an investor including every past stock picks Motley Fool Stock Advisor has made.
You’ll also join a community of over a million other subscribers where you can post and answer questions and see what other Motley Fool investors are doing.
Motley Fool Stock Advisor features
Now that we’ve covered the basic services and tools included with membership, let’s get into some of the other perks and benefits of being a member.
Instant alerts
There is an instant alert feature to add your favorite stocks to the platform and keep an eye on how they are trending. So if there are large price fluctuations, opportunities to buy or sell, or other situations, you’ll be alerted so you can know what action to take.
News
The Motley Fool puts together informative investment news articles and publishes these right on the main screen of Motley Fool Stock Advisor. This allows you to keep up on everything you need to know in the world of investing.
Historical stock picks
As a member, you’ll have access to Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor stock picks dating back several years. Even though the window of time to invest in past stocks may have come and gone, you can still see what their historical picks have been and how they have fared. And there may be a few stocks still worth investing in.
You can see how some of the historical picks have trended and potentially formulate your stock picks based on some historical recommendations.
Live customer service
Suppose you have questions about the product itself and not investment-related questions. In that case, you can contact their customer service through the toll-free number and speak to a live person.
Message boards
This is a unique feature that I love. While there are tons of investment message boards out there, this one is specifically for Motley Fool Stock Advisor members. So you can feel welcome to ask questions and give opinions because you’ll be speaking directly with other members who have the same information as you.
Stock screener
Motley Fool Stock Advisor has an easy-to-use stock screener. You can enter the stock or sort by asset class, sector, dividend yield, volatility, and other filters. It’s not as robust as something you might see through a trading platform like some of the best brokerage accounts, but it’s relatively intuitive and user-friendly.
How to sign up for The Motley Fool Stock Advisor
Signing up is easy. All you need to do is go to the sign-up page for The Motley Fool Stock Advisor and select “Act Now.”
From there, you’ll sign up with some basic information including your first name, last name, billing address, and credit card information on the subscription page.
Limited time offer
New members who sign up for a limited time using our link to apply will receive an introductory promotional discount off the usual price for Stock Advisor. You’ll save $100 and pay a total of *$99 for the first year instead of $199 but you’ll still get all the same benefits as if you’d paid full price. It’s a super welcome 50% discount off the list price.
Each new annual membership comes back by The Motley Fool Stock Advisor’s 30-day 100% membership fee-back guarantee. So if you’re not happy with the service, you can cancel within 30 days for a full refund and shouldn’t have any problems getting it. You’re automatically opted into auto-renew following the promotional first but can contact Motley Fool to cancel.
What are the type of stocks Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommends?
Stock Advisor usually picks growth stocks and blue chip stocks with high potential for long-term returns. This means you might see a variety of different companies and industries and different justifications for each stock pick.
Stock prices vary, but don’t expect to see any penny stocks or stock picks with very low purchase prices. If you want to sort by price or something else, use the Stock Screener on The Motley Fool website to browse different stock picks you’ve received from Motley Fool services or view other stocks.
Performance of the The Motley Fool Stock Advisor
If you’re wondering how Motley Fool stock picks actually perform compared to the overall stock market and popular indexes, the answer is better (on average).
Since its inception in February of 2002, Motley Fool Stock Advisor picks offer a return of approximately 672% compared to the S&P 500’s 154% (returns valid as of April 1, 2024). And according to Motley Fool as well as real users, recommendations from The Motley Fool turn a profit around 60% to 70% of the time.
The rest of the time, The Motley Fool might recommend selling a stock. Their team will keep an eye on all the investments they recommend to help you stay informed.
How much does The Motley Fool Stock Advisor cost?
Membership is $199/year. Membership includes the two monthly stock picks, Top 10 Rankings, Starter Stocks, and educational resources.
But there’s always a sign-up offer. Right now, new customers who use our link to apply when signing up for a limited time can get a full year of access to Stock Advisor for *$99, and that’s backed by the 30-day, money-back guarantee. The discounted offer of *$99 is based on the $199/year list price, offering a discount of $100—that’s 50% off. Introductory promotion for new members only.
But there are also other ways to use parts of Stock Advisor without paying for the whole package or bundle this Motley Fool service with others. Here are a couple of alternatives to paying for the Stock Advisor service on its own.
1 Stock Recommended by Stock Advisor
$100 will get you one research report containing a single stock pick from Stock Advisor’s team and a thorough assessment of why it was chosen. This can be a good way to sample Stock Advisor if you’re really not sure about paying for an annual or monthly membership. There’s are options to receive a recommended stock from other teams as well for the same price per a report.
The Motley Fool Epic
Epic comes in at $499/year normally. If you want more stock recommendations, more support, and just more from The Motley Fool, check out Epic for a more comprehensive investing solution. This package includes immediate access to The Motley Fool’s foundational stock-recommendation scorecards: Stock Advisor, Rule Breakers, Hidden Gems, and Dividend Investor. In total, you’ll get five or more new picks each month, which is more than double what you would get with one service. You’ll also get Top 10 Rankings each month as well as buy and sell alerts on active recommendations.
We won’t go into much detail here about how these services differ, but we will say the value of Stock Advisor and Rule Breakers alone is essentially equal to the price of offer. Per The Motley Fool, The Rule Breakers team has doubled the market’s return since inception of the scorecard. Pretty cool.
Right now, for a limited time, The Motley Fool is offering Epic (regular list price $499) for just $319 for a limited time coming. That’s only about $6 a week! Use our link to get the discounted offer. Epic combines foundational stock-investing scorecards into one membership and grants you immediate access to all the active stock recommendations within Stock Advisor, Rule Breakers, Hidden Gems and Dividend Investor.
Only *$319 for a year of full access to Epic, which includes Stock Advisor, Rule Breakers, Hidden Gems and Dividend Investor scorecards... that’s around $6 a week!
A comprehensive investing solution that includes 5 monthly stock recommendations, a members-only podcast, powerful insights and more to create an 'Epic' experience.
With savings of over $180 off the list price for new members only, we’re big fans of this offer. Plus, it’s backed by a 30-day membership fee back guarantee. Simply cancel within 30 days and you’ll receive every penny of your membership fee back if you decide it’s not for you.
Other premium services from The Motley Fool
There’s a whole range of premium services from The Motley Fool depending on what you’re looking for with the more expensive options clocking in at $4,999 to $13,999/year. These are more so for experienced investors who know what they’re looking for.
Is The Motley Fool Stock Advisor worth it?
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor can be worth it, especially for long-term investors. The answer to the question ultimately comes down to how you’re going to use it. This stock-picking service is intended for long-term investing and emphasizes a buy-and-hold strategy.
It’s really important to remember that all stock recommendations assume a five-year investing horizon and are chosen for long-term performance. This means that you shouldn’t expect immediate returns and are strongly advised to hold each stock for at least five years.
If you’re looking for a quick payout, consider a different service. A trading platform optimized for day trading would be a better fit for investors looking to buy and sell frequently. But understand no brokerage platform can guarantee you’ll make money or give you a timeline for returns. And the more frequently you trade, the more frequently you’re opening yourself up to risk.
» Open an account with The Motley Fool Stock Advisor today.
Tips for how to use The Motley Fool Stock Advisor
According to The Motley Fool, subscribers to Stock Advisor should focus on building a stock portfolio of 25 different stocks, including stock recommendations from the service, and give their investments time to become profitable (at least 5 years). This is the best way to make each stock pick count.
Here are a few more recommendations for using this service wisely.
Use all the resources
To take full advantage of Stock Advisor, you’ll want to spend time using all of the resources this service has to offer and not just buying the stock recommendations and calling it a day.
Read the investment articles, see what other Motley Fool Stock Advisor subscribers are up to, and check out the reports available to you. That way even if you only end up paying for this service for a few years, you’ll still be better off and a more knowledgeable stock investor in the end.
Take advantage of the community too. If you just wait for those two stock picks to hit your inbox each month and never use the service besides, you’ll be missing out on some of the best parts of subscribing to Motley Fool.
Act quickly
Another piece of advice we have for making the most of Stock Advisor is to act quickly. As soon as those stock recommendations get to you, consider adding them to your portfolio as quickly as you can because you’re most likely to get a low price if you buy right away. And remember, all other Motley Fool Stock Advisor subscribers are seeing the same picks as you.
Keep track of when the recommendations are scheduled to arrive and do your best to have the funds ready when they do. Likewise, if Motley Fool’s team suggests you sell a stock that’s underperforming, you may not want to delay in getting rid of it to cut your losses and come out on top.
Be consistent
The best way to use The Motley Fool Stock Advisor program is to invest in both stocks that are recommended each month. You should generally invest the same amount in those stocks and keep pouring new money into your portfolio.
So, for example, if you choose to invest $1,000 in each of the stock picks every single month for the entire year, you’re going to be better off than you would be picking and choosing which of the investments you want to invest in or doing it at different dollar amounts. From a long-term perspective, it wouldn’t make much sense to invest different amounts in different stocks because this will somewhat defeat the purpose of diversifying and cause your investments to be skewed.
Follow the expert picks and invest as consistently as possible to be provided the best chance at high returns.
Who is The Motley Fool Stock Advisor best for?
Motley Fool Stock Advisor might be right for you if you fit any of these investor descriptions.
Experienced and busy investors
If you’re a more experienced investor with a lot on your plate, you can save time using The Motley Fool Stock Advisor if you don’t want to do stock research yourself.
To genuinely get good at picking stocks, you have to understand the ins and outs of the companies that you’re looking at and probably at least understand a stock chart. But even if you’re skilled at doing this, it’s time-consuming.
So not only does this narrow the pool of investments to look for, but it serves up two picks every single month, so you can invest in those stocks and do nothing more with your portfolio if you want to.
Long-term investors
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor is best for people who want to invest in individual stocks as part of their long-term investment strategy. It’s ideal for passive, big-picture investing and removes the headache of choosing stocks yourself.
Fund investors
If you’re someone who has traditionally only invested in things like ETFs or index funds, but you want to start picking individual stocks too, you might feel overwhelmed or confused about where to start. The Motley Fool Stock Advisor does most of the work for you and you can trust that the stock picks you receive have been extensively researched – just not by you.
This service is also suitable for people who want to hedge their investment portfolio. Meaning, if you have mostly ETFs and index funds, and you want to take a little bit more risk by picking a handful of individual stocks (say <10% of your portfolio), you can do this without going way too off-course in the stocks you’re choosing.
Those who want an investment community
The shared message board is an excellent place to ask questions and bounce investing and stock ideas around with other like-minded members. If you want a group of people to talk investments with, and discuss stock picks with, The Motley Fool Stock Advisor is a great option.
Who shouldn’t use The Motley Fool Stock Advisor?
While The Motley Fool Stock Advisor is great for some people, it may not be worth it for others. Here are a few types of investors who should think twice before signing up for this type of subscription.
Brand new investors
If you have never invested before, don’t know how to start invest, and haven’t started building a diversified portfolio of assets, you might want to hold off on signing up for The Motley Fool Stock Advisor. Brand-new investors are better off sticking to an ETF, mutual fund, or considering one of the best robo-advisors until they own stocks in a variety of companies and industries before investing in a stock-picking service to expand on that.
While The Motley Fool Stock Advisor is beginner-friendly and the Starter Stocks are helpful for creating a solid foundation of investments, this service is best for continuously contributing to your portfolio, not beginning it.
And because it won’t personalize recommendations to your goals and needs and won’t offer portfolio monitoring services, it shouldn’t be used to build an investing strategy from scratch.
People who want exclusive or personalized picks
Suppose you’re someone who likes to go in and make stock picks for yourself by analyzing different companies or finding companies that nobody else knows about. In that case, this product will be frustrating for you because you are getting the same two picks that everyone else who subscribes to The Motley Fool Stock Advisor is getting.
Anyone willing to pay for this service can get it and none of the stocks are chosen for you specifically. The Motley Fool doesn’t take individual investor profiles into consideration at all when putting together recommended picks for The Motley Fool Stock Advisor.
Day traders
The Motley Fool’s investing philosophy is all about long-term returns. All Motley Fool Stock Advisor picks are given to subscribers with the hope that you buy and hold them for at least five years to give the stock market time to fluctuate and bounce back if needed, and for value to be realized or growth to occur. So you should stick with a stock pick unless otherwise recommended.
If you’re looking to get rich quick and capitalize on short-term returns, The Motley Fool might not be right for you. This platform as a whole is not ideal for day traders.
The competition
The primary competitor of Motley Fool Stock Advisor is Morningstar, but there are also a few other types of investor tool and resource services that offer some of the same benefits and some benefits missing in a stock picker.
Robo-advisors, for example, are one alternative to stock-picking services. These are often very affordable because they use computer algorithms to recommend investments instead of real people, but they also provide more personalized services that cater to your individual needs.
Here are some top competitors to Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor and how they compare.
Motley Fool Stock Advisor vs Wealthfront
Wealthfront is our most recommended robo-advisor with a lot of features to offer, and it’s great for beginners starting with a $500 minimum investment.
Wealthfront is designed for young professionals, anyone from passive investors who want expert digital guidance, to people who want to be smarter with money.
With low fees and multiple tax perks, automated investment management tuned in to your individual risk level make Wealthfront worth a look.
- Passive investing with automated management
- Tax-loss harvesting
- Ability to customize portfolios
- No fractional shares of ETFs in automated accounts
- No human advisors
Compared to most robo advisors, Wealthfront asks a lot more questions about your investing goals when you first sign up, which can be helpful for newbies who aren’t quite sure what they’re looking for yet. And after the questionnaire, Wealthfront recommends a portfolio for you featuring a mix of ETFs. The annual advisory fee is competitive in the space at 0.25% on all assets held in their automated investing account.
If you’re choosing between Wealthfront and Motley Fool, you’ll need to decide if you’d rather automatically invest in a whole customizable stock portfolio with Wealthfront or pick a few individual stocks at a time with The Motley Fool Stock Advisor. Passive investors may prefer Wealthfront.
» MORE: Read our full Wealthfront review
Motley Fool Stock Advisor vs Morningstar
Morningstar is an investment data and analytics company that provides detailed info and ratings of stocks and funds. Some of Morningstar’s research is free to access, but Morningstar Investor is a paid subscription that unlocks all of the firm’s analysis and commentary, as well as premium tools like Portfolio X-ray.
Morningstar does not recommend individual stocks but provides quality ratings on thousands of different stocks and funds to help you build your own portfolio. If you like picking stocks for yourself, choose Morningstar as a resource. If you want specific stock recommendations, choose The Motley Fool Stock Advisor. For both of these, you can find an in-depth analysis of specific stocks. But with Morningstar, that analysis might occasionally be three to four months old. For the most up-to-date information, we would go with The Motley Fool Stock Advisor.
Summary
Overall, The Motley Fool Stock Advisor is an excellent product at a reasonable price for the value it offers. If you’re ready to purchase individual stocks, want help picking them, and you’re willing to pay for expert recommendations, this is a really solid choice backed by performance. In addition to 24 stock picks per year, you’ll receive valuable tools and resources to help inform the rest of your long-term investing.
However, The Motley Fool Stock Advisor has limitations. You can’t customize the type of recommendations you receive and you will get the same information as everyone else who has a subscription. If you’re looking for more personalization and help building a portfolio from scratch, consider an alternative like a robo-advisor.
If you do decide to sign up, take advantage of the discount using our link and come back to this review for tips to make the most of your subscription.