I Pity the Fool who Doesn't Visit Motleyfool.com
Written: Jun 13 '03
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Pros: Lots of information; Financial Calculators abound
Cons: Corporate research not as good as the rest
The Bottom Line: This is a very good financial web service for personal finance, with gobs of facts and calculators to help with your personal planning.
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| Bryan_Carey's Full Review: Motley Fool |
Founded in 1994 by David and Tom Gardner, Motley Fool is a comprehensive financial web service that covers a broad range of personal finance topics. The Gardner brothers have had much success with this site, which has led them to also author several books about personal finance and investing. But it all started with the launching of this web service, motleyfool.com. Let’s take a closer look at this on- line financial resource:
What Does This Service Offer?:
Motley Fool has almost too many categories to mention them all individually. But here’s a breakdown of the main sections of this web service:
Home Page- From the home page, you can access up to date news stories, commentaries, stock quotes, and factual editorials on all sorts of financial topics (401K, Banking, Credit Cards, Retirement, Insurance, IRA’s, Taxes, etc.). You can also signup for a free newsletter.
TMF Money Advisor- This is a personalized service, and it will cost you to sign up (except for the introductory period). For your money, you are given a personal financial advisor and all the tools you need to establish a financial plan.
Discussion Boards- This includes messages posted by other Motley Fool members along with special sections like “Hot Topics”, “Post of the Day”, “Most Active Boards”, and a few others.
Quotes & Data- This takes you directly into the stock market information/education area of the site. Besides getting stock quotes, you can also look up tips on investing and setup your own on- line portfolio.
Shop Foolmart- Books, seminars, and how- to guides are offered for sale in this section. You can even purchase Motley Fool gear, such as t- shirts, sweatshirts, and hats.
My Portfolio- This is where you can setup and manage your own portfolio of investments. You can setup several different portfolios, if you wish. It’s just a matter of plugging in the ticker symbols, number of shares you own, cash you hold, and other financial data. You can logon here whenever you like, to check your portfolio balance and you can have e-mail alerts sent to you to keep a close eye on price changes.
My Fool- This is a personalized feature that allows members to establish their own unique setup. It allows you, the member, to link together your favorite features of the site, message boards, and your own portfolio, into one area, “My Fool”. With this in place, you can click on this link and immediately see the features in the site that matter to you.
Costs for Usage:
There is no direct cost to use most of this service but you must establish an account before you can access some of the features, and that includes a few of the basics, like stock quotes. Setting up an account involves entering your e-mail address, your name, address and phone number (this is a required field so if you don’t want to get phone calls, just make up a number. You can’t skip it), along with a password. You will get several special offers when you register, but you don’t have to accept any of them to complete the process. Just make sure that you uncheck the boxes.
If you decide to use the Motley Fool Money Advisor, it will cost you $195 for 12 months. But you can start with a free 30- day trial period, to see if this service is worth it or not.
Final Thoughts:
Motley Fool is a comprehensive financial web service that covers all the basics of investing plus a whole lot more. This site explains financial topics in detail, and it can answer most any question that you might have, and even provide you the advice and guidance of a professional counselor, for a fee.
There are many things that stand out about this site but one that will really grab the attention of most web surfers (especially more novice investors) is the extensive number financial calculators offered. With other financial sites, you expect to have a handful of calculators to choose from, offering such things as 401K growth, IRA, debt reduction, and a few other basics. But Motley Fool offers one hundred different calculators! Not only do you get the basics (like credit card reduction, mortgages, college savings, etc.), you also get some calculators that deal with more specific financial topics that you don’t normally see in most financial sites. They are divided into eleven categories: credit/budget, home, savings, college, equity credit, retirement, Roth IRA, bonds, auto, and salary. Just select a calculator, punch in a few numbers, and you will see if you are on your way to meet your financial goals.
All together, there are about 40 categories of financial facts in Motley Fool. Some of them are expected, like insurance, stock advisor, and college savings. But others are more than what one would expect, like teens & money, and Index funds. With each category, you get a list of about 10 to 15 different commentaries about that particular financial subject. For instance, in the “Teens & Money” section, there are advice columns with titles like “Stocks for Teens to Consider”, “True Teen Stories”, and “What to Expect from Investing”.
The corporate research in this site is probably its only visible flaw. Motley Fool covers the basics here, showing stock quotes, income statement summaries, balance sheets, analyst’s estimates, etc. But there isn’t a whole lot of in- depth coverage like you get in some other sites. For example, the income statements show only a summary (for example, total expenses are shown, but you can’t see a breakdown of the expenses), not a detailed listing. And the data that is there isn’t arranged in the most pleasing way. The organization is not very appealing to the eye and not very easy to read, like it is with, say, Quicken.com.
Aside from the corporate data, this site is top- notch and it can prove to be very helpful to those who need to lookup some personal financial information. David and Tom Gardner set out to build a comprehensive financial site when they launched Motley Fool, and when it comes to personal finance, advice, and tips, they have succeeded!
Recommended:
Yes
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