Motley Fool Rule Breakers Review – 2018 Stock Picking Performance Review

How did the 2018 Motley Fool Rule Breakers Picks Perform? It’s time to look back at the 2018 performance of the Motley Fool Rule Breakers (in-depth review) service and analyze all the stock picks measuring short and long-term performance 4 years later. For this review we’ll analyze the performance of recommendations including the worst performers. We’ll break down the performance by the 3 recommendation types to get a complete picture on the Motley Fool Rule Breakers way of investing so you can better decide if the service is right for you. For those unfamiliar Rule Breakers has three types of recommendations which are…

• New Recommendations: These are high growth recommendations which they release two of them monthly. On occasion they are re-recommendations of a past pick when their conviction level is extremely high.

• Best Buys: These recommendations are released bi-weekly and they feature 10 timely recommendations which are believed to be the best stocks from all active recommendations current and past.

• Foundational Stocks: Sometimes called “Starter” stocks, these 10 stocks are released at the beginning of the year and are designed to provide maturity, stability and growth to new and established portfolios.

In general the Motley Fool recommends a portfolio construction of at least 25 stocks to have adequate diversity and the foundational stocks are meant to provide a based on which you begin purchasing new recommendations, building up over-time to a portfolio of at least 25 holdings.

Probability of Positive Returns

The Motley Fool analyzed Stock Advisor performance from March 31, 2002 – November 19, 2021, using an average portfolio from an average month during that time period to help determine the optimal number of holdings and holding period. They found that the optimal number of stocks to hold is 25 and the optimal minimum holding period is 5 years which produced a 98.4% likelihood of positive returns with an average return of 89.6%.

So without further ado let’s dive in and look at the performance of Rule Breakers in 2018. How did the 2018 Rule Breakers (see our review) Picks Perform Long-term?

New Recommendations produced a 108% cumulative return to date. Best Buys produced a 106% cumulative return to date. Foundational Stocks produced a 200% cumulative return to date. Blended Average produced a 138% cumulative return to date.

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The Best Rule Breakers Picks from 2018

The best Rule Breakers pick from 2018 produced a 1,112% return by the 4th year, making a $1000 investment worth $12,124. A $1000 investment in each of these picks would have returned you $24,293 by the fourth year. That’s the power of compounding returns. That 11x return on one stock would cancel out 11 other equal weighted investments that go to zero. That is the power of asymmetric risk. You can only lose 1x the money you invested, while you can gain 5x,10x,100x or more. That’s asymmetric returns and the primary draw of stock picking and the value of services like the Motley Fool offers.

Click Here to See the Latest Rule Breakers Picks (as part of the Epic Bundle)

How did Rule Breakers Perform vs Stock Advisor (read our review)? While Rule Breakers performance was great, Stock Advisor out-performed in many categories. Stock Advisor had…

• 130% higher 4 year returns

• 109% more 3x returns

• 67% more 50%+ first year returns

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The Worst Rule Breakers Picks from 2018

The worst Rule Breakers pick from 2018 was down -92% by Mar 21, 2022 making a $1000 investment worth just $83. A $1000 investment in each of these picks ($5000 total) is worth $914 as of Mar 21, 2022. Based on equal weight investing the 5 best picks returned 5x more money than the losses from the 5 worst picks in 2018.

5 Best Picks by the Charts

• #1 Best Rule Breakers Pick from 2018

• #2 Best Rule Breakers Pick from 2018

• #3 Best Rule Breakers Pick from 2018

• #4 Best Rule Breakers Pick from 2018

• #5 Best Rule Breakers Pick from 2018

How did the 2018 Rule Breakers Picks Perform in the Short-term?

New Recommendations produced an average return of 8% at 3 months and 21% at 9 months. Best Buys produced an average return of 4% at 3 months and 19% at 9 months. Foundational Stocks produced an average return of 4% at 3 months and -7% at 9 months.

Click Here to See the Latest Rule Breakers Picks (as part of the Epic Bundle)

Rule Breakers 2018 Win Rates

Now let’s look at win rates and see what percentage of stocks produced a 15%+ and 50%+ return in the first year. Then let’s look at the unicorns and see how many 3x and 10x stock picks so far to date.

How did the 2018 Rule Breakers Picks Perform in the Short-term? New Recommendations had 54% of picks with 15%+ returns in the first year and 21% with 50%+ returns. So far to date 8% have had 300%+ returns, 4.2% have had 1000%+ and one pick with an amazing 1,112% return. Best Buys had 52% of picks with 15%+ returns and 31% with 50% returns at one year. Foundational Stocks had 44% of picks with 15%+ returns and 11% with 50%+ returns at one year.

Rule Breakers Performance Review by Sector - 2018

The top performing sectors were information technology, communication services and industrials with information technology yielding the highest return of 144%. The average sector weight was 20% with the largest sector accounting for 46% of the picks.

Performance vs. The Market (Annualized)

New Recommendations Rule Breakers S&P 500 Beat Market by 1 Year 27% -7% 479% 2 Years 48% 10% 400% 3 Years 59% 12% 383% Blended Average 45% 5% 808% Foundational Stocks Rule Breakers S&P 500 Beat Market by 1 Year -3% -7% 52% 2 Years 2% 10% -78% 3 Years 60% 12% 394% Blended Average 20% 5% 302% Best Buys Rule Breakers S&P 500 Beat Market by 1 Year 22% -7% 408% 2 Years 44% 10% 359% 3 Years 55% 12% 346% Blended Average 40% 5% 716%

Click Here to See the Latest Rule Breakers Picks (as part of the Epic Bundle)

Conclusion

The stock picks from Motley Fool Rule Breakers in 2018 strongly outperformed the market in nearly every category. The annualized returns on the new recommendations beat the market by 383% in the 3rd year and the Best Buys beat the market by 346% in the same period. Rule Breakers continue to prove itself to be an invaluable source for oriented growth investing recommendations. And each year they continue to add exponentially more value through all the additional resources like daily market briefings, webcasts, market research and more frequent updates and coverage on new and past recommendations. For serious investors just getting started or those with years and decades of experience we believed Rule Breakers is a great investing companion well worth the $99/year (for new members). Additionally the Motley Fool has a similar service called Stock Advisor which in many categories has out-performed Rule Breakers. You can see our yearly reviews of that service here. We actually advise people to try both services together as they are very complementary to each other and provide 2x the stock recommendations and they come with a 30 day membership-fee back guarantee.

Bundle Offer: Stock Advisor + Rule Breakers + Everlasting Stocks + Real Estate Winners. 1 Year for $319

More Stock Market Resources:

• Best Stock Advisor Websites & Services

• Motley Fool Stock Advisor

• Motley Fool Epic Bundle

• Motley Fool Discounts

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• Motley Fool Rule Breakers

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Did you know that…

Survivorship bias in mutual fund performance means only existing funds, not those that have closed or merged, are often considered in performance metrics?