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TMF Share Advisor

Discuss Stock buying Shares, tips and ideas for stock market dealing
InterestedParty
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Joined: January 14th, 2017, 11:52 pm

TMF Share Advisor

#23727

Postby InterestedParty » January 17th, 2017, 12:25 pm

Has anyone subscribed to The Motley Fool Share Advisor service or any of their other services? I was considering it as a way of getting some stock ideas but don't know what their success rate is like with their picks.

Paultry
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Re: TMF Share Advisor

#23742

Postby Paultry » January 17th, 2017, 1:16 pm

I have never subscribed for any paid platform that would advise me where and and what to invest in.

But I would be interested to know whether such platforms such as Stockopedia and TMF have really truly helped others to success.

I follow Paul Scott, and some of his podcasts, occasionally read the Telegraph's Questor column, the discussions here, articles of TMF and any other bits of information that I can glean such as that at Barclays Stockbrokers.

Overall I have made some really bad investment decisions (Monetise, Mothercare, Genel Energy, Rolls Royce) to name my worst. But those choices were made with the best of intentions, belief and encouragement from all the pundits and experts at the time. Every time I think what an idiot I am I glance at a copy of Munch's 'The Scream' and realise that things could be worse.

Happy investing. Paul

Pygidium
Posts: 6
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 10:55 pm

Re: TMF Share Advisor

#24864

Postby Pygidium » January 20th, 2017, 10:34 pm

I have a subscription. This time since Dec 16, previously had a subscription in 2012. TBH not impressed this time around. Their stats are currently beating the market (FTSE100) but they have a very wide range of results and the market beating result evaporates if you remove the one very positive outlier. Their write-ups are terse and they do not give details that would really show that they have done the hard yards getting to know the companies. This months recommendation very disappointing, precis as: We don't know what the market is doing so we'll re-recommend you purchase a big bank we recently recommended! Not really one of the two well researched recommendations a month that it says on the tin :?

They also keep mailing me to subscribe to their other services! That and the loss of the boards makes me think they are spread too thin. Positive is they do offer pro-rata refunds if your not happy.

Writing this has convinced me to cancel subscription, I'll update on how that process goes...

Jeff26
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Re: TMF Share Advisor

#26136

Postby Jeff26 » January 25th, 2017, 4:55 pm

Waste of time. Save your money and don't get suckered by the marketing claims. You will get better information out of the Hyp and other contributors on Lemon Fool.

SalvorHardin
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Re: TMF Share Advisor

#26141

Postby SalvorHardin » January 25th, 2017, 5:12 pm

I subscribe to the US Fool's "Stock Advisor", which is probably of little use to people on this board because it is 100% American shares.

I don't get it just to get stock ideas - the subscriber only company-specific boards are surprisingly good (they are just like the TMF message boards of old). I have owned shares in several companies that Stock Advisor covers for some years before I started subscribing (e.g. Disney) and find it to be a useful news service. If anything for me the boards are much more useful than the company recommendations.

It's also useful to keep a steady flow of information coming across my metaphorical desk, particularly about topics which I wouldn't normally come across. Just like how every couple of months I buy several magazines covering topics which I don't really follow just to see what is happening - an issue of Vogue some years ago put me onto Burberry!

For me the cost is trivial relative to portfolio size.

NormanB
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Re: TMF Share Advisor

#33173

Postby NormanB » February 20th, 2017, 5:29 pm

I agree with Salvor, the cost is trivial if your are dealing with a large portfolio.
I currently subscribe to MF Pro and MF Hidden Winners. I have recouped my subscription fees within a few weeks with both services. It is important that you are happy to invest for the long term as some recommendations will take a long time to come good (and some never will) but some shares have soared quite dramatically in a short time.
I don't have the magical crystal ball so it is pure luck if I choose to put money in one stock rather than another but sometimes a gut instinct works.
Personally I do not get too much involved with the figures, I like to see a few years of regular profits and cash in the bank with not too much debt gives some confidence in the future.
I missed out on a multiple bagger when I sold Boohoo much too early, my silly fault, but I am hopeful that other recommendations are heading in the same direction.
I would say give it a try as you can always pull out and get a pro rata refund if it is not for you.
As for re recommending a share I think it shows good sense to do that if the circumstances merit it. After all who can buy two different shares every month and coming up with one just to make up the numbers would be wrong?
I like the MF team's style, not too technical but enough information to make a judgement on if it suits you or not.

spencetj
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Joined: January 14th, 2020, 1:11 pm

Re: TMF Share Advisor

#277358

Postby spencetj » January 14th, 2020, 1:47 pm

Sorry for any stupid questions, I am new at this investing lark...

Resurrecting an old post, but is the feeling about TMF Share Advisor still the same ie not worthwhile for the recommendations (ignoring whether its worth it for the forums)?

Like many others I get bombarded by their marketing emails. I encountered TMF years ago when, if I remember rightly, their basic ethos was that picking stocks was too hard, even investment fund managers get it wrong more than they get it right and charge you higher commission for the privilege, so you are better off just putting your money in an index tracker.

I am trying to follow the Warren Buffet style as popularised (simplified?) by Phil Town in "Rule #1 Investing". Basically looking for companies with a consistent track record of growth over 10 years and buy them when they are on sale. Good theory, harder in practice. I have used a few search tools and websites (stock2own,com, sharepad.co.uk) but not really found any UK stocks that meet the criteria. There are US ones but then it gets more complicated with currency fluctuations etc.

So I thought about TMF Share Advisor. The cost of the service is not so much but the money I could lose if they are wrong is much more. If there are 2 new recommendations each month presumably I would need to buy all of them since no one (including TMF) know which will go up and which will go down, so any profits on the good ones are diluted by losses on the others. I am also wary that TMF can make the recommendations but they get their fees either way, it is me who is taking the risk. Of course they give examples of their best tips that have made a mint, but no details on how many others were a flop.

Incidentally I found this board from a link on TMF in a notice about their forum closing. Still seems to be a (US?) one at boards.fool.com though.

Sorry for the rambling post. Any comments or suggestions (other than "ramble less")? CHeers.

spiderbill
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Re: TMF Share Advisor

#277383

Postby spiderbill » January 14th, 2020, 2:43 pm

I had a subscription when I first started investing in shares properly in 2011. It was as much to learn and see different investing styles and perspectives and I suppose it was quite good for that aspect. However the actual recommendations were of very mixed quality and their overall figures tended to depend a lot on one or two very successful early picks while the rest mostly languished and they occasionally had an absolute horror like Afren. I still have a few losers (thankfully low value as I was only investing small amounts to begin with) that came from their recs. While I did get some successes like RPC and Renishaw I was also landed with the likes of ITE, Spirent, Majestic Wine, and Debenhams.

I dropped them when it became apparent that they were often either running out of ideas or simply repeating old ones. And some of the old ones that they trumpeted often seemed to have no obvious value e.g. Burberry which at the time had a low yield and whose share price wasn't going anywhere. And some they said were great value were ones that they'd said that about in the past and were now well underwater, but they never acknowledged that they'd been poor buys for the first set of buyers.

I did give them a second try a couple of years or so ago on a cut-price 6 month deal, just to see what lines they were working on and how I could now analyse them, but I don't think I bought any of their recs that time around and most of those were shown to be good judgement on my part.

So it was useful learning experience in some ways but not a good share value experience. This place is much more useful.

cheers

Spiderbill

scrumpyjack
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Re: TMF Share Advisor

#277387

Postby scrumpyjack » January 14th, 2020, 2:55 pm

There is a very high risk in using any of these tip sheets. If you are unsure what to buy, but think equities are likely to be the best long term home for your money, buy index trackers.

Paultry
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Re: TMF Share Advisor

#277417

Postby Paultry » January 14th, 2020, 4:44 pm

I did eventually succumb to joining Stockopedia for a year.

Lots of information and analysis available, and it guided me into investments with so-called high scores, bear in mind the high scores can become low scores quite rapidly.

Overall I do not believe that it helped me to be a better stockpicker.

Even as a non-subscriber you could gain access to Paul Scott's small caps report and see the progress of their NAPS portfolio. Alas, as with many things the open access to these sites has been removed.

So my dear friends I rely on your suggestions and guidance to help me to choose where to invest.

Paul

PinkDalek
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Re: TMF Share Advisor

#277443

Postby PinkDalek » January 14th, 2020, 5:37 pm

Paultry wrote:I did eventually succumb to joining Stockopedia for a year. ... Even as a non-subscriber you could gain access to Paul Scott's small caps report ... Alas, as with many things the open access to these sites has been removed.


As a non-subscriber but registered there, I can't access the data but, nowadays, I'm able to read both the full Small Cap Value Report and all the reader comments. Further the daily email arrives as a reminder.

Paultry
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Re: TMF Share Advisor

#277740

Postby Paultry » January 15th, 2020, 10:17 pm

PinkD
I've have just tried once more to read small caps etc.. I am blocked!

spencetj
Posts: 4
Joined: January 14th, 2020, 1:11 pm

Re: TMF Share Advisor

#277772

Postby spencetj » January 16th, 2020, 8:57 am

Thanks all for the feedback, it sounds like a very clear "no" to the Share Advisor. Which still leaves me with my original problem of finding shares with the right long term history, but I will start a separate thread for that.


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