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The Motley Fool is a private financial and
investing Investment is the dedication of money to purchase of an asset to attain an increase in value over a period of time. Investment requires a sacrifice of some present asset, such as time, money, or effort. In finance, the purpose of investing i ...
advice company based in
Alexandria, Virginia Alexandria is an independent city (United States), independent city in the northern region of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia, United States. It lies on the western bank of the Potomac River approximately south of Downto ...
. It was founded in July 1993 by co-chairmen and brothers David Gardner and Tom Gardner, and Erik Rydholm, who has since left the company. The company employs over 300 people worldwide.


Company name

The name “Motley Fool” is taken from Shakespeare’s comedy ''
As You Like It ''As You Like It'' is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in the First Folio in 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has b ...
''. It references the one characterthe court jesterwho could speak the truth to the Duke without having his head lopped off.


History


Early years

In 1994, The Motley Fool published a series of statements online promoting a nonexistent sewage-disposal company. The messages, which were an April Fool's joke designed to teach a lesson about
penny stock Penny stocks are common shares of small public companies that trade for less than one dollar per share. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) uses the term "Penny stock" to refer to a security, a financial instrument which represents a ...
investing, garnered widespread attention, including an article in ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
''. In August that year, the Gardners parlayed their one-year-old investment newsletter into a content partnership with
America Online AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo! Inc. ...
(AOL). In December, they were profiled in the "Talk of the Town" section of the ''
New Yorker New Yorker or ''variant'' primarily refers to: * A resident of the State of New York ** Demographics of New York (state) * A resident of New York City ** List of people from New York City * ''The New Yorker'', a magazine founded in 1925 * '' The ...
''. In 1996, David and Tom Gardner published ''The Motley Fool Investment Guide'', which ranked on bestseller lists for ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' and ''
Bloomberg Businessweek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...
''. The book was controversial; ''
Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to: People * Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer * Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian * Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician and m ...
'' wrote about The Motley Fool's "Fanatical following", while a
PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
''
Frontline Front line refers to the forward-most forces on a battlefield. Front line, front lines or variants may also refer to: Books and publications * ''Front Lines'' (novel), young adult historical novel by American author Michael Grant * ''Frontlines ...
'' episode described the company as made up of "20-somethings" giving "so-called advice". In 1997, the Motley Fool's online presence moved from AOL to its own domain, Fool.com, where it continued to provide investment advice under an advertising-based revenue model.


"Foolish Four" and dot-com bust

In the late 1990s, the Motley Fool publicized their "Foolish Four" method of
Systematic trading Systematic trading (also known as mechanical trading) is a way of defining trade goals, risk controls and rules that can make investment and trading decisions in a methodical way. Systematic trading includes both manual trading of systems, and full ...
, adapted from the
Dogs of the Dow The Dogs of the Dow is an investment strategy popularized by Michael B. O'Higgins in a 1991 book and his Dogs of the Dow website.
method for selecting stocks from the
Dow Jones Industrial Average The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), Dow Jones, or simply the Dow (), is a stock market index of 30 prominent companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States. The DJIA is one of the oldest and most commonly followed equity inde ...
based on high
dividend yield The dividend yield or dividend–price ratio of a share is the dividend per share, divided by the price per share. It is also a company's total annual dividend payments divided by its market capitalization, assuming the number of shares is constant ...
. They published a book on the topic in 1999. Journalist
Jason Zweig Jason Zweig is an American financial journalist. He has been a columnist for ''The Wall Street Journal'' since 2008. Biography Zweig received his B.A. from Columbia University in 1982. He also studied Middle Eastern history and culture at the ...
criticized the Foolish Four method in 1999. Zweig describes selecting high-dividend yield stocks as a "sensible" strategy, at least on a preliminary level, as such stocks tend to be relatively inexpensive compared to other stocks using various valuation methods. However, Zweig said the Motley Fool staff made outlandish claims such as the ability to "crush
mutual fund A mutual fund is a professionally managed investment fund that pools money from many investors to purchase securities. The term is typically used in the United States, Canada, and India, while similar structures across the globe include the SICAV i ...
s nonly 15 minutes a year", used needlessly complicated mathematical formulas and he questioned the method's effectiveness. In 2000, Motley Fool writer Ann Coleman admitted that the Foolish Four method "turned out to be not nearly as wonderful a strategy as we thought". During the
dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...
and market collapse of 2001, the Motley Fool company removed 80% of its staff in three rounds of layoffs. It also closed its operations in Germany and Japan, which have since been re-established.


Expansion

In April 2002, The Motley Fool shifted to a subscription-based business model with the launch of its first subscription service for investment advice. The company launched its Stock Advisor program, offering subscribers monthly stock picks and premium investment education. The company also established free and subscription-based businesses in several countries. As of 2019, The Motley Fool has operations in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Germany, and Japan. In October 2019, the company announced that it was shutting down operations in Singapore. A year later, in October 2020, the company announced that it was also shutting down operations in Hong Kong. In August 2018, the company launched a personal-finance sub-brand called The Ascent to provide personal finance product reviews and free educational resources. In September 2019, the Motley Fool launched two more sub-brands. Millionacres provides subscription-based
real estate investing Real estate investing involves the purchase, management and sale or rental of real estate for profit. Someone who actively or passively invests in real estate is called a real estate entrepreneur or a real estate investor. Some investors actively ...
advice and real estate resources. On September 17, 2019, the Motley Fool launched its app, Investor Island. Investor Island is a real-time strategy board game based on investing. Players compete online to destroy each other's bases and gain a monopoly. Players collect stocks that reflect actual market data and give players money based on historical actions in the stock market. The Motley Fools claims that "everyone might just learn a little about the power of investing in the stock market" after playing their game. Investor Island is available on the iOS Appstore.


Legislative efforts

Representatives of The Motley Fool have testified before Congress against mutual fund fees in support of fair financial disclosure on the Enron scandal and the
IPO An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
process. In 1999, the
Securities and Exchange Commission The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market ...
proposed
Regulation Fair Disclosure Regulation FD (Fair Disclosure),
Retrieved January 25, 2011.
ordinarily referred to as Regula ...
, which would require companies to simultaneously give vital information to Wall Street analysts and the public. In December 1999, Motley Fool author Bill Barker wrote an article telling readers to post comments on the SEC's website. The regulation passed, and in the July 2, 2001, edition of ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'', former SEC chairman
Arthur Levitt Arthur Levitt Jr. (born February 3, 1931) is the former Chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). He served from 1993 to 2001 as the twenty-fifth and longest-serving chairman of the commission. Widely hailed as a c ...
is quoted saying, "Two-thirds of our letters came from Fools. Without them, Reg FD would not have happened".


See also

*
Investopedia Investopedia is a financial media website headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1999, Investopedia provides investment dictionaries, advice, reviews, ratings, and comparisons of financial products such as securities accounts. Investopedia ha ...
*
Seeking Alpha Seeking Alpha is a crowd-sourced content service for financial markets. Articles and research covers a broad range of stocks, asset classes, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and investment strategies. Unlike other equity research platforms, insight ...
*'' Totalise plc v Motley Fool Ltd'' * Wall Street Survivor


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Motley Fool, The 1993 establishments in Virginia American companies established in 1993 Companies based in Alexandria, Virginia Economics websites Finance websites Financial services companies established in 1993 Internet forums Internet properties established in 1993 Investment in the United States Webby Award winners