I am wondering if any of you have a chance to try both MDP and Supernova and if you have to choose one, which one will it be and why.
Thanks for the input.
Johnny
Johnny, what’s your style of investing, and what are you looking to get out of your membership? That will matter a lot.
Neil
I am wondering if any of you have a chance to try both MDP and Supernova and if you have to choose one, which one will it be and why.
For me, I’d prefer Supernova, mostly because the sorts of companies they select from are more interesting to me.
As a Fool One member, I have access to both MDP and Supernova (plus all the other services). I don’t try to replicate the purchases and sells for either, but I pay more attention to what’s going on in Supernova.
I would characterize Supernova overall as “aggressive growth”, and MDP as “growth.” Supernova tends to be tech heavy.
If you subscribe to MDP, I believe you get access to all of the “idea” services that it picks from (Stock Advisor, Rule Breakers, Hidden Gems, Inside Value, Income Investor). MDP itself is a single real-money portfolio that is a blend of stocks from those services. The portfolio does not add or remove money; it is just trying to grow what it already has. The team running MDP changed in the last year or so. I like the make-up of the new team, though they no longer provide “fair value” or “buy around” price guidance.
If you subscribe to Supernova, you get access to Stock Advisor and Rule Breakers. The Supernova “universe” of stocks consists of Rule Breakers and David’s picks from Stock Advisor; it does not include Tom’s picks from Stock Advisor. All Supernova “missions” select from the Supernova universe of stocks. There are three real money portfolios: Odyssey 1 (meant for people who are adding money, with many years until retirement), Phoenix 2 (for people near retirement), and Phoenix 1 (used to be for people near retirement, but has no more deposits, and is withdrawing money to simulate living off your portfolio). There are two Explorer missions that try to be more selective (Explorer 1 selects four stocks from the universe, then does a “final four playoff” to come up with a winner; Explorer 2 selects a Best of the Best Buys from Rule Breakers and David’s Stock Advisor for that month). There are other occasional contests.
I am very close to retirement. If this year’s performance holds out a few more months, I will reach my retirement savings goal. So I’m watching Supernova’s Phoenix 1 with great interest, especially how they are selling. Plus, I’m a fan of all of the team members, especially the team leader Jim Mueller (TMFTortoise).
By contrast, if I were to die or become incapacitated, I would urge my wife to follow the Pro portfolio. It has a record of consistently good, but not stellar, returns. Their portfolio seems definitely less risky. I think my wife would be much more comfortable with less risk and less reward. I currently have about 1/6 of my portfolio mirroring Pro. That’s currently a hedge in case we have a bad bear market where my Saul- or Supernova-like investing suffers a major pullback. (Note that I plan to have at least 3 years of expenses in non-investible cash to hold us over shorter bear markets. The Pro component is in case the rest of the portfolio hasn’t recovered by then.)
Hope that helps,
-Mark
15 Likes
Mark,
Great reply and I find we are in a similar situation.
I am close yo retirement as well and I did start with Supernova. I am not pulling money out yet and have not followed all their recommendations, but did get lucky and bought Netflix 
I like Pro as well, especially on their use of protecting the downside with the help of SPY Puts.
Overall, my goal is to reduce the number of stocks I have, as I am not able to follow all of them as needed and therefore relying on the recommendations from the service ( we all know they don’t like to sell, so one sees the stock go up and then come crashing down, DDD anybody???!!!)
Overall very happy to have found this board early on.
I have shifted my portfolio to more of the growth stock we are talking about here.
Good luck, Erik
2 Likes
Neil,
I think Mark answer my question.
Mark,
Appreciate your response. I will be looking for the Supernova invitation so I can try it out.
Johnny