Off Topic- Favorite Fool services

I have subscribed to several of the MF services in the past and just let a subscription to Fool One expire because I seem to spend more time elsewhere, mainly this board. However, I feel a bit like a freeloader since I now have no subscriptions.

This has probably been covered in the past, but what is the current view of the best MF services from the followers of this Board?

I understand everyone is in a different financial situation and life situation, but I have always believed good advice is good advice whether you are just starting out or have been doing it for many years.

Thanks.

Rickey

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what is the current view of the best MF services from the followers of this Board?

Rickey, I would always keep at least a Rulebreakers subscription, and realistically probably a Stock Advisor sub too since you can usually get them both pretty cheap if you’re willing to look around a little or call customer service and ask for their best prices.

I also like MF Pro, but it’s not Saul’s style at all, and is far more expensive than just the RB/SA combo.

Neil

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In total, I follow over 200 boards across all services.

Among services, my favorites are Rule Breakers and Stock Advisor, supplemented by a few public boards:

Plus….I follow more closely certain boards at MF Pro that are related to companies I’m interested in.

Since I am part of the Supernova service, I obviously am partial to it and it includes both Rule Breakers and Stock Advisor. If one feels they don’t need portfolio input then I suppose most folks would prefer to just subscribe to the individual services even though there are some unique Supernova features such as the Explorer board discussions.

So far, I haven’t addressed “Why?”.

RB and SA usually have the companies that most interest me although there are certainly plenty of companies I don’t like. I’m generally looking for companies with some sort of sustainable competitive advantage with very good to exceptional growth in revenues, profits and cash flow… at a price I consider reasonable. Yes, those exist even at RB. :wink: By the way, you’ll note that a lot of companies discussed on this board have already been recommendations at one of those services.

Rob

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I choose the services for the boards, not for their recs. Hidden Gems, Rule Breakers ,Stock Advisor at this time. I find RB and SA boards far more useful than HG, and may let HG subscription lapse.

Some of the best boards on MF are free. Mechanical Investing near the top of my list but it’s not easy to follow or understand.

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no need to look around Neil -

Stock Advisor - 2 years for $98

https://www.fool.com/order/fe_offers/2375e1fc-5480-4213-ab9c…

Rule Breakers - 2 years for $98

https://www.fool.com/order/fe_offers/1e231acf-552b-47ca-b448…

Hidden Gems - 2 years for $79

https://www.fool.com/order/fe_offers/0b8db0b7-b5c1-4d7c-85a3…

Income Investor - 2 year for $79

https://www.fool.com/order/fe_offers/bd503553-0fd9-4784-ae2d…

Inside Value - 1 year $49

https://www.fool.com/order/fe_offers/3aab4f0b-b988-4f0e-a51c…

All with the standard money-back guarantee.

Greg
DAR & LUK Ticker Guide

See all of CMFGalapagos’s holdings here:
http://my.fool.com/profile/CMFGalapagos/info.aspx

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I’ll echo others. I like SA and RB since those 2 services seem to have the most active boards, and Recs most compatible with my investment style and tolerance for risk. More recently as I see retirement on the horizon I have added Income Investor for some more conservative income producing investment ideas. Tom E (TMF1000) posts on HG boards a lot which adds to its value. Seems like all these services are a great bargain, especially using Greg’s links!

David

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I’m with Rob. SA and RB are my favorite premium services. If I had to pick one, it would probably be SA because of greater board participation. On the public side, I frequent the Berkshire Hathaway and REIT boards the most along with this board. I also like the Falling Knives and Dividend Growth Investing boards. Additionally, I subscribe to the II service. You can’t beat the two year deal.

Don

anyone has an opinion on Supernova or Motley fool One?

thejusticier,

I am a Fool One guide. My role there is to help new members make the most use of that service, which essentially gives you the keys to the entire Fool universe.

Supernova is one of the services you will gain access to should you opt for One… but other than that, I can only discuss it in broad outline. I will happily discuss the merits of Fool One with you, and help you decide if it is the right service for your needs.

Let me know if you wish to dig deeper; I am copying this reply to your email, so reply using that channel so we don’t disrupt the board with our side-bar.

Tiptree, Fool One guide

Greg

Thank you for posting these, which do appear to be very attractive deals.

I used the RB one yesterday. Without a doubt, I received more than $98 worth of value just from the INFN board and the great work that Foolish Erik and others have put in.

Cham

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Once again this post has saved me some serious money. Thanks again for sharing it

Is there a specific URL to see what offers are available? Or a search technique?

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Nice balloons Banjolicious!

Is there a specific URL to see what offers are available? Or a search technique?

Not that I know of. I just have those five bookmarked. They are older but still seem to work (have for several years now)

Greg (was CMFGalapagos, now back to portastatic…)

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The links still work but the prices don’t…

My apologies. Those links do work and will get the prices advertised. At least it did for Hidden Gems.
Accessing the Hidden Gems site directly only offered up a $199 per year rate.

Better use those links before someone takes them down.

Thanks very much TMFGalapagos for helping renew a membership long left behind (and missed).

PS - Is the Galapagos part of your name from a trip? your homeland? a bucket list item?
We visited for our 25th anniversary and it was everything we could have wanted.

I am a member of SA, although our investment philosophies are somewhat different.

In my opinion I would not make the mistake of what so many investors do when they join SA, do not buy every new recommendation. Look for the companies you truly believe in, have a feeling for, understand.

I look at it this way. If I get one solid idea a year from SA, like this past year it was SHOP, and I buy the stock and it performs well, I’ve more then made up my subscription for the rest of my life.

What we mainly have in common on Saul’s board is that we are as open to selling a stock as much as buying a stock.

I’d love to hold a stock forever, but sometimes you need to know when it’s time to sell or trim a position. SA is more of a hold forever, and the rare times they do sell, a stock has usually plummeted in stock price and after quite some time of holding, deciding that it’s time to move on as a very last resort.

Chris

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The links still work. I just now bought 1 year to SA and Rule Breakers for $49 each.

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I’d love to hold a stock forever, but sometimes you need to know when it’s time to sell or trim a position. SA is more of a hold forever, and the rare times they do sell, a stock has usually plummeted in stock price and after quite some time of holding, deciding that it’s time to move on as a very last resort.

I was complaining about this on another SA board recently, but I have to admit the response I got was pretty convincing: that losers can only lose 100% while winners like AAPL, NFLX, and AMZN have gone up over 1000% since first recommended.

So if you’re buying in equal amounts, you can pick 9 almost total losers and it only takes one 10-bagger to more than compensate. I started building a list of losers: WPRT, FEYE, SODA, RST, COH, etc. but could get to nine that were down more than 90%. And, typically, you’re not buying in equal amounts.

SA re-recommends stocks doing well, and yes, stocks that they feel are wrongly down beaten (which sometimes go down even more!). So, yes, while they may re-recommend a WPRT, they also re-recommended NFLX during its Quickster debacle (which I stupidly ignored thinking Hastings was out of touch, which he was in terms of what customers wanted but not in the overall business model), which was a super-great call on their part.

I don’t have the links handy, but a few people have posted that if you bought all of SA’s recommendations and re-recommendations and NEVER sold any, you’d be ahead versus doing both the buying and selling they recommended. Oh, and nicely ahead of the market, too.

That all said, I’m actually with Chris in terms of my actual behavior. I don’t buy most things that are recommended. I don’t necessarily sell the ones I own when recommended. I look at the companies and decide which ones “I like.” Meaning I like what the company does (I stay away from oil & gas, military, and a few other industries), and I believe the company has some combination of a good story in a growth industry, superior management, product/price moat, etc.,

I’ve done pretty well, but I keep reminding myself that I didn’t start this journey until March 2009 - which is when I decided to convert my 401K to something actively self-managed after my “safe” retirement-oriented mutual funds lost well over half their value. I’m up quite a bit versus just keeping my money in those funds, so that was a good choice to me, and at a very opportune time. But, I do realize I haven’t held individual investments during a real bear market, and that’s the real test of one’s portfolio management skills.

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“SA re-recommends stocks doing well, and yes, stocks that they feel are wrongly down beaten (which sometimes go down even more!). So, yes, while they may re-recommend a WPRT, they also re-recommended NFLX during its Quickster debacle (which I stupidly ignored thinking Hastings was out of touch, which he was in terms of what customers wanted but not in the overall business model), which was a super-great call on their part.”

Ok here is the thing though. What I have learned from above example is that there are winners and there are losers, of course. Looking at these two examples, in hindsight, hindsight being 20/20, but also can teaches us about future investments.

NFLX is a gamechanger with a great CEO that over time has not only proven his ability to manage the company, but also back it up with numbers. Yes they stumbled, but within a quarter or two they got back on track. Companies like WPRT never seem to get on track. I love to invest in visionaries like Hastings and Bezos. Why they are two of my top holdings.

WPRT on the other hand, I can’t tell you who their CEO is, I know that he hasn’t delivered, that the stock price has reflected pretty much how the company has performed over the last few years. Admittedly I don’t follow WPRT, but I do know that the stock price did plummet.

So why hold a company at all like WPRT, or TCS, that seem to only drag down the great companies in a portfolio. I know, how do you know unless you give them a chance. My answer to that is that I’m willing to give a company a chance, I’m just not willing to hold shares of a company that seems to continuously dissapoint quarter after quarter like a WPRT, or a TCS.

Chris

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WPRT on the other hand, I can’t tell you who their CEO is, I know that he hasn’t delivered,

You sure can’t Chris. The CEO is not a “he”, but a “she.” Ha!

I only know this because I stupidly invested in WPRT when I knew nothing about investing, though I still don’t know much.

A.J.

AJ,
Here is the irony in that.
As I was typing “he”, in my head, which moves a lot faster then my fingers, I was thinking “what if the CEO is a she?”. Being lazy, I didn’t want to type all of that, so I left it as just a “he”, but feeling that this bit of lazy male psovenism might come back and kick me in the @ss.

Indeed it did.

Chris

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