On "i can't read the article"

Look, if you are going to be a serious investor you invest serious amounts of your hard earned cash in this endeavor. To then decide that you can’t afford the tiny $15 or $20 a month to access Seeking Alpha, or the Motley Fool, or Bert’s newsletter, you are out of your mind.

Let me give you a hypothetical. I bought Shopify a few years ago when the MF recommended it 2 months in a row. I sold it a couple of years later at about 5 times what I paid for it. Let’s say I made $25,000 on that (it was more). The subscription cost me what? $250 per year? So that one idea paid for over 100 years of subscriptions, with plenty left over. Yes, 100 YEARS!!!

Don’t be penny-wise and pound-foolish. I couldn’t imagine investing the way we do and cutting myself off from any one of those three sources of information, altho I don’t agree with 100% of what any of them say.

Best,

Saul

150 Likes

I couldn’t agree with Saul more.

For over a decade I have held my SA and RB subscriptions to the Fool and it has helped me transform my financial life from an investing perspective.

It gave me access to the premium boards here on the Fool, where I spent most of my time before finding this board and NPI back in late 2017/early 2018.

In those years, I learned valuable lessons about how to evaluate companies as investments. I’m a CPA, so the financial statement analysis was the easy part. But numbers don’t tell the whole story.

I was constantly urged by the Fool’s perspective that you should think like an owner. I identified with David Gardner in particular and his approach to finding rule breakers. So much so, that I emailed him at one point in 2014 and laid out my case as to why my former company was a rule breaker.

And finally, through my FOOL subscriptions I discovered many companies that I simply would have never heard of. And when they were official newsletter picks, I read the write-ups voraciously as my starting point. Those subscriptions have paid for themselves many, many times over.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve also branched out and subscribed to other sources in an effort to widen my knowledge and find more great companies.

I subscribe to Bert’s newsletter and if you’re on this board and NOT reading Bert, then you’re missing out on one of, if not the best analyst in the IT space. I get that many will not be OK with his past (look at his Seeking Alpha profile for details), and that’s your right. But if you can separate the past from his ongoing skill set and contributions, then there is significant opportunity in his service. And while I haven’t discovered any new companies from his newsletter as most of them are covered here, his insights have given me additional comfort in building large positions in the stocks we follow.

I’m also a subscriber to 7investing.com. Though in their infancy as a newsletter, they’re doing some great work and are lead by several experienced and FOOLish analysts. They are yet another tool in my investing belt and another way to build conviction in the companies I choose to invest in.

I consider my membership cost to 7investing.com a thank you to one of the lead analysts who I saw pounding the table on Twitter for FSLY. Before I subscribed, I took positions in FSLY and LVGO on the same day in April. Those two moves alone could pay for ALL of my memberships for many years (decades) long after I’m gone.

Apologies for the long-winded response, but I truly cannot agree with Saul enough. The cost you incur to subscribe is far outweighed by the value you receive. And at some point down the line, at least for me, the membership fees became every bit as much about paying it forward as it was about finding great investments.

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Can we get additional info relative to “Bert’s newsletter?”

Bill

Can we get additional info relative to “Bert’s newsletter?”

https://tickertarget.com

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Bert’s service is available at tickertarget.com

In December of 2018 Jason Moser was on one of the Motley Fool free podcasts and pointed out that AMZN stock had sold off quite a bit from its high and was at a very attractive valuation. At that time, I was not really following markets or stocks very deeply, but I listened to the free MF podcasts periodically. I had a lot of money in cash at the time. I discussed it with my wife, and we decided to put a big investment in AMZN. That experience is what started me on the journey of investing I am now on. I joined both Stock Advisor and Rule Breakers out of gratitude mostly. I only held AMZN for around 9 months, but I made enough off that free recommendation to more than pay for SA and RB for the rest of my life.

I got another free recommendation from another podcast called “We Study Billionaires” for Bed Bath and Beyond. The guy who made the recommendation was Jesse Felder. He is 100% NOT what this board is about, and the BBBY investment was a value investment - not hypergrowth. However, I made more on his recommendation than I made on AMZN and I now subscribe to his service also. He is very bearish. I like having a counterpoint argument to all the bull-bull-growth input I get everywhere else. He covers none of the companies discussed on this board, but I’ve built a level of trust with him. Not trust that he will be right, but trust in his character and that he is providing analysis based on what he really believes. FWIW.

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I use SA frequently, and especially for earnings call transcripts, but would like to know what the additional utility behind a paid membership is. Any insights?

I use SA frequently, and especially for earnings call transcripts, but would like to know what the additional utility behind a paid membership is. Any insights?

If SA subscribers can access MF Live Chats I would strongly recommend you watch the Countdown: Top 6 Cloud Stocks (Replay) segment which is extremely well done and very informative.

https://www.fool.com/premium/coverage/4056/coverage/2020/08/…

Bill

6 Likes

I believe we have some SA confusion.

I use SA frequently, and especially for earnings call transcripts…

The earnings call transcripts are on Seeking Alpha.

If SA subscribers can access MF Live Chats…

Subscribers to Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor service would be referenced there.

5 Likes

I believe we have some SA confusion.

Precisely, and my apologies. I meant that I use Seeking Alpha for the earnings call transcripts, and was wondering about the utility in their subscription service. Thanks for pointing out the ambiguity.

DoctorRob

The premium Seeking Alpha membership is useful to read premium (non-free) articles. Many times the authors can chose to publish articles for premium subscribers only.

I personally think it’s worth the price.

But the downside to having all these subscriptions is the time commitment it requires to digest all these completely without rushing.

  1. Premium board posts in TMF
  2. Seeking Alpha articles
  3. Bert’s service
  4. Earnings Calls & transcripts
  5. The new Substack in-depth articles
  6. Last but not least the SSI articles

But the more i do it, the more addictive it gets that i forget the passage of time.

Thanks,
Pravin

Saul / anyone using Seeking Alpha paid version,

I completely agree with Saul and others, the value of these memberships are invaluable! I am a Motley Fool One member, plus Bert, Beth Kindig, 7Investing and many other free blogs, like SSI.

But I have not paid for Seeking Alpha and I am wondering what value you get from the paid version? And maybe who are the top people you follow on paid version?

Lastly, this board is worth all the above added together, it has changed my life and it has made retiring early a possibility, THANK YOU SAUL(and many other regular posters)!!!

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But I have not paid for Seeking Alpha and I am wondering what value you get from the paid version? And maybe who are the top people you follow on paid version?

You can try their paid version for a month free. They will also email you “how to use me” information to help you navigate the site.

Paid users get a sampling of excellent authors like the Bert Hochfeld and Beth Kendig mentioned above. Also good charting of earnings, margins and other fundamental company information.

Give it a try. I expect to renew.

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What is the difference between tickertarget.com and what Bert posts on Seeking Alpha?

Usually about three to four days :slight_smile:

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Serious answer. If you subscribe to ticker target by Bert you will get so much more information than you see online. He has a couple of portfolios that he updates regularly as well as covering many if not all of our stocks here. I figure the cost of advice and particularly research is a very small price to pay for what we do.

Gordon

2 Likes