The Motley Fool has become one of the most popular online forums and investment oriented web sites for individual investors. At least part of this popularity has resulted from strong performance of a Motley Fool real money portfolio discussed on their web site and in their books.
Performance evaluation can be complicated and conclusions are often subject to debate.
In marketing and evaluating their own performance, fund managers and sponsors have a tendency to focus on successful funds and periods of outperformance, while ignoring or underemphasizing previously unsuccessful funds and periods of underperformance. As a result, many performance claims are subject to survivorship bias . For this and other reasons, it is prudent and often illuminating to independently evaluate performance or seek unbiased interpretations of performance. It is important to note that The Motley Fool has been in existence for approximately five years and the longest track record for any of the Motley Fool real-money portfolios is less than five years. Experts generally agree that longer track records are required to determine whether outperformance or underperformance can be attributed to skill as opposed to luck.