Does The "Motley Fool's" Stock Picks Pan Out?

[ralph124c]

I get emails from the Motley fool-and they constantly tout their successful stock picks. I am skeptical-first, if they are so good, why would they wamnt to share their success?
Second, why sell the advice to subscribers? Just do the investing yourself, and get rich.
I’d be interested in anyone’s expereinces-have you actually been able to beat the market, but using their advice?

[guyblond]

The stock pick emails that I use to get from Motley Fool always looked like stock pumping to me. The hyping of stock for their own personal gain. And their gain is probably your loss.

[Hilarity_N.Suze]

Things like the Motley Fool can actually affect the price of stocks. There are people whose entire investment plan is to follow the market. This leads to higher prices in those stocks they pick.

I have always figured Motley Fool is guiding the stocks. They have a reason for picking them, and it’s not so that your average shlub can make some easy money.

[Cyberhwk]

Motely Fool recanted their Foolish Four strategy.

[adaher]

Motley Fool isn’t some get rich quick stock picking scheme. They advocate buying and holding, and point out correctly that a small investor can and should beat the market by a couple of points if they aren’t actively trading. I’ve been an investor for 15 years, and Motley Fool is one of the tools I use to get information. I don’t subscribe to any of their offers, some of that stuff borders on speculation. But their general investing advice that they give away for free is sound, and they do point the way to good values and stocks with good balance sheets.

I’ve beaten the market by an average of 2 points per year in good years, by 5 points per year in down years(in other words, I still lost money, just less than the S&P did). I’ll give you my strategy for free: don’t buy anything you won’t hold for at least 2 years. Make sure the company has a good balance sheet(low debt and cash on hand are especially important). Make sure the company isn’t overpriced when you buy it. And dividends rock. But make sure the payout ratios are low enough for the dividends to be sustainable.

[Marley23]

I’m not seeing this as a Great Debate. Sending it to IMHO.

[Trom]

This site provides a nice summary of stock “guru” performance.

@CXO Adviosry

We have accumulated reviews of the public U.S. stock market forecasts of various investing/trading experts for more than two years. With over 4,500 measurements for 50 gurus, including bulls and bears and technicians and fundamentalists, we have critical mass for: (1) assessing the forecasting acumen of the stock market gurus as a group; and, (2) ranking experts according to the accuracy of their past forecasts. This kind of forecasting ability is different from, but may be related to, stock picking expertise.