Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor Review

Check this Motley Fool Stock Advisor Review before signing up. Is it worth it? Does it deliver? We review this trading service where Motley Fool does the time consuming research for you, then presents you with stocks they feel you should buy now.

Every month, the two owners of the Motley Fool send you their best stock to buy now. Every month they also send you 10 other stocks to buy now for a total of 12 stocks per month to invest in. Over a year’s time that comes out to 144 stock picks you need to watch and/or buy.

While subscribing to proven services such as Stock Advisor is one of the fastest and easiest way for a beginner to make gains in the market, there are four things you need to look for when evaluating any trading service such as Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor.

I recently visited their site on March 31, 2023 where I found the following returns advertised:

According to this table on their website, since 2002 (inception), the average return of all their stock picks has given their subscribers a 386% gain over 20 years. Since their service is ONLY about stocks you have to buy now and hold, it’s not clear where this return comes from.

Stock Advisor gives you 12 stocks a month or 144 possible buys per year. Their website recommends buying 25 and hold them for 5 years. I sure wish they would have actually posted the stocks and the gains achieved in the past so we can see for ourselves how the gains were calculated. A little transparency please.

Now if you want something a bit simpler and with bigger gains, we can compare Stock Advisor to my own Index Trading Strategy. With ITS we only trade two ETF’s. TNA and TZA (or TQQQ and SQQQ for trading Nasdaq). When the market is expected to rise, you get an alert for TNA or TQQQ. When expected to drop, you sell what you are in and move the funds to TZA or SQQQ. Do this about 10 times a year. Note: ITS started in 2009. Because of this the chart below reflects ITS gains from 2009 to March 2023.

We all have only a certain amount of time before we retire (or pass away). The faster our money grows and the better chance we have of hitting our financial goals. While past gains are not indicative of future gains, ITS did achieve a much bigger gain than Stock Advisor AND did it 33% faster (only 14 years instead of Stock Advisor’s 21 years).

Stock Advisor no longer offers a monthly subscription. It’s either one year or nothing and runs $199 annually. $199 is a reasonable cost. My own Index Trading System is also $199 per year but there is also a monthly subscription at $19.95 monthly. As you see, both services are priced the same annually, except the Index Trading Strategy has given it’s subscribers bigger gains in a smaller amount of time.

With Stock Advisor, every month the two owners each give you their favorite stock pick as well as a list of 10 other stocks to watch. That’s 12 stocks a month or 144 stocks during your one year subscription. Their strategy is to buy 25 of the stocks and hold them for 5 years. There is no mention which 25 of the 144 stocks given you are to buy. I believe you could just buy the owners top 2 picks each month (two trades a month) for one year. After a year cancel the service and in 5 years, just sell. Stock Advisor as far as I know, has no rules when to sell. That is up to you.

With the Index Trading Strategy there is only one ETF to buy. You’ll be instructed what to buy and when to buy. Once you take your initial position, you’ll then be emailed/texted when to sell the ETF you are in and what ETF to buy next. These trade alerts are sent about once a month. Trade alerts come after the market has closed. You set an order to buy the ETF at the next day’s open. That’s it.

Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor does have a 30 day money-back guarantee. You can go in for 30 days and see what they recommended in the past and what the returns were for all 144 buy recommendations each year. If they can’t show you those, beware.

Be warned. From reviews of past Stock Advisor customers, Motley Fool is very aggressive at marketing. Expect a salespeerson to contact you while you have a subscription and offer you many of their other products.

The Index Trading System also offers a 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee to verify returns and see if it’s something you can do. Cancel within 30 days and get full refund of your subscription fee (and you don’t have to ask – comes automatically). The guarantee comes with monthly and annual plans. There also will be no salesmen pushing products.

To wrap up this Motley Fool Stock Advisor Review, let’s go over what we discovered.

ITS has gained more over a shorter period of time. This is extremely important, but do know, past returns not indicative of future returns.

Price is the same.

Guarantee is the same.

ITS has one trade a month while Stock Advisor has two.

ITS alerts inform you what and when to buy. Stock Advisor informs you when to buy, but it is up to you to decide which of the 144 stocks to buy each year.

Now that you have the facts, you can now make a more informed decision as to which advisory service is best for you.

There is no guarantee that my Index Trading System, or Stock Advisor will do similar gains in the future.

To your success.