Motley Fool Everlasting Portfolio Review

About the Motley Fool

The Motley Fool is one of the biggest financial media companies in the world, specializing in financial news and investment advisory services. The company was started in 1993 by Tom and David Gardner, two brothers who shared their investing ideas on a simple website.

The company has since grown into a financial media powerhouse with more than 300 employees, a dozen investment advisory services, and millions of monthly readers.

We have reviewed a few of the company’s most popular premium services. We started with our Motley Fool Stock Advisor review and eventually started reviewing services like Rule Breakers, Motley Fool Options, and Rule Your Retirement.

Today, we are going to look at the Motley Fool Everlasting Portfolio, one of the company’s high-end investment advisory services.

Is the service worth paying for? Keep reading our Motley Fool Everlasting Portfolio review to find out.

What is Motley Fool Everlasting Portfolio?

Motley Fool Everlasting Portfolio – not to be confused with the Everlasting Stocks service – is one of the Fool’s most premium (and expensive) services. It’s also one of the most interesting Motley Fool services we’ve reviewed to date. You’ll want to read this review thoroughly because there is a lot to digest.

Everlasting Portfolio aims to be the ultimate portfolio-building service. It offers an inside look at Tom Gardner’s personal stock portfolio. You can see every single stock he holds, how he allocates his capital, what returns he earns, and more.

There are a few other perks to this service that we’ll discuss, but the main benefit is being able to see the exact portfolio Tom Gardner has been using to make millions of dollars in the stock market.

📈 Features	Stock Picks & Full Portfolio Access
📊 Performance	650% Lifetime Returns
💰 Pricing	$1,599/year
🙍‍♂ Key People	Tom Gardner
✅ Best For	Long-Term Investors

Who is Tom Gardner?

If you are going to pay to see someone’s stock market portfolio, you want to make sure they are reputable. After all, you probably wouldn’t pay a dime to see your neighbor’s portfolio (no offense) because you have no idea whether or not they’re credible.

So, is Tom Gardner credible? Absolutely.

Tom Gardner is a well-respected investor who has made a living off his investing prowess and transparency. Tom, alongside his brother David Gardner, have been the masterminds behind the Motley Fool brand for almost three decades.

Tom’s stock picks have been outperforming the S&P 500 by a considerable margin. We’ll take a closer look at specific performance data later in the review.

What Do Motley Fool Everlasting Portfolio Members Get?

Now that you know a bit about the service, it’s time to look at what really matters. What do you get as an Everlasting Portfolio member?

As mentioned above, the star of the service is the live portfolio. That said, the service has a few main offerings.

• Investment Education
• Portfolio Alerts and Updates
• Live Portfolio Access

We’ll start by looking at the auxiliary benefits before doing a deep dive into the portfolio.

Investment Education

Everlasting Portfolio is not a standalone investment education service, but it comes with four main resources.

1. Getting Started with Everlasting Portfolio
2. Principles of Winning
3. Philosophy
4. Selling Strategy

Each resource comes in the form of an in-depth guide designed to help members make the most of the service. While these lessons can be applied to any investment strategy, they are specifically designed to be applied to the Everlasting Portfolio (after all, you’re paying for it).

The resources are relatively basic, but it’s important for investors to understand the methodology behind the portfolio if they want to replicate Tom’s success.

Portfolio Alerts and Updates

Tom Gardner’s portfolio is regularly updated. Members will get an alert every time Tom makes an update to his portfolio.

These alerts usually come in the form of buy and sell recommendations, similar to the Stock Advisor service.

Updates usually come every month or every other month. Unlike other Motley Fool services, the alerts aren’t delivered on a fixed schedule (i.e. two alerts per month). Alerts are issued when changes are made to the portfolio.

For example, Tom issued 4 buy alerts in July of 2020 and 3 sell alerts. He hasn’t issued any updates since (as of October 2020). This speaks to the nature of the service. It’s less about constantly buying hot stocks and more about maintaining a strong portfolio of stocks.

This leads to the main part of our Everlasting Portfolio review.

The Everlasting Portfolio

If you are paying for access to Motley Fool Everlasting Portfolio, you are paying for access to Tom Gardner’s personal portfolio. You can get investment education from a variety of sources and you can get hot stock picks from cheaper services like Stock Advisor and Rule Breakers.

The Everlasting Portfolio gives you an inside look at how these stock picks can comprise a real portfolio. We’ve tried both Motley Fool Stock Advisor and Everlasting Portfolio, and being able to see a real portfolio makes a big difference. It adds a whole new dimension to the investment advice.

The portfolio is set up as a sortable table that includes the following columns:

• Company and Ticker
• % of Portfolio (i.e. allocation)
• Market Value
• Cost Basis (i.e. average entry price)
• Current Price
• Return

It’s really that simple. The table looks similar to what you’d see if you logged into your brokerage account and pulled up your own portfolio.

So, how does this portfolio perform?

Portfolio Performance

We cannot share any specific holdings of the portfolio out of fairness to both The Motley Fool and its paying subscribers. That said, we pulled all of the data into Excel and put together a list of some key statistics. All performance data is as of October 2020.

Overall Performance

• Everlasting Portfolio: 454.7%
• S&P 500: 204.8%

Tom Gardner’s portfolio more than doubled the returns of the S&P 500.

Annualized Performance

• Everlasting Portfolio Since Inception: 23.2% Annualized
• vs. S&P 500: 15% 
• EP Past 5 Years: 23.9% annualized
• vs. S&P 500: 14.4%
• EP 2020: 66.1%
• vs. S&P 500: 9.7%

Portfolio Composition

• 63 Total Stocks
• Stock prices range from ~$15-$500 (the average share price is $102.44)
• 45 Winners Comprise 95.3% of the Portfolio (i.e. positive return)
• 18 Losers Comprise 4.7% of the Portfolio (i.e. negative return)

71% of the stocks in the portfolio have positive returns. While 29% of stocks have negative returns, these stocks only account for 4.7% of the portfolio’s value. Tom allocates more capital to winners and keeps losing positions small.

Returns

• The average return of a winner is 208.3%
• The average return of a loser is -43.89%
• The biggest winner returned 898.9% and accounts for 19.3% of the portfolio
• The biggest loser returned -87.7% and accounts for <1% of the portfolio

Once again, Tom makes a habit of doubling down on winning positions and minimizing losing positions. The biggest winner also happens to have the highest allocation in the portfolio.

Allocation

• The average allocation per stock (i.e. % of the portfolio) is 1.55%
• The highest allocation is 19.3%
• The lowest allocation is 0.0% (i.e. such a small position that it is insignificant)

The allocation levels correlate with the returns, with the heaviest weighted stocks providing the highest returns. It appears that Tom likes to match his position sizes to his conviction in an investment.

Sectors

The portfolio is heavily weighted in tech, with the majority of the portfolio allocated to tech companies in a variety of different industries. There are a few picks from other industries like food, health, finance, and apparel.

Portfolio Dollar Value

• $11.7 million in stocks (95.4%)
• $546,000 in cash (4.6%)
• 3 Stocks with Market Values over $1 million

This is not a small, experimental portfolio. It’s Tom’s real account and it’s very interesting to see how much he actually invests in a stock. It’s one thing to get a Stock Advisor alert that says “Buy XYZ.” It’s another to see just how much money Tom has invested in the pick.

Is Everlasting Portfolio Right for Your Investing Style?

We just went over the key statistics for the portfolio you will have access to as an Everlasting Portfolio member. If you are trying to figure out whether the portfolio aligns with your own investing strategy, there are a few things to consider.

First off, the portfolio performs exceptionally well. It has more than doubled the performance of the broader market. If you are just looking for stocks that will yield exceptional returns, this portfolio is a good fit.

If you have a specific investing style, there are a few additional considerations.

Everlasting Portfolio is a growth stock portfolio. If you are looking for stocks that will outperform the market, this is a good fit. If you are looking for income (i.e. dividend stocks), this is not the portfolio for you.

Everlasting Portfolio is heavily weighted in tech stocks. Tech stocks have done exceptionally well over the past decade and the portfolio has benefitted accordingly. While this service isn’t as tech-biased as the Motley Fool’s Augmented Reality portfolio, it is still tech-heavy. If for some reason you have no interest in tech stocks this portfolio may not be a good fit.

Everlasting Portfolio’s investment methodology is rooted in diversification. It is recommended that investors own at least 30 stocks in the portfolio. A single holding should never comprise more than 20% of your net worth.

Everlasting Portfolio is a long-term portfolio. It is recommended that investors hold most of these stocks for at least five years (unless a sell alert is issued).

Everlasting Portfolio is susceptible to market volatility. You can’t beat the market without being exposed to volatility. You should be able to stomach 10-15% price drops at any given time.

The service also issues the following guidance to members:

• Don’t buy fewer than 10 stocks
• Don’t aim for short-term gains
• Don’t invest all of your savings in stocks
• Don’t borrow money to buy stocks
• Don’t buy stocks simply because they have a low share price (i.e. under $5)
• Don’t expect all of your stocks to go up

Motley Fool Everlasting Portfolio Pricing

By this point in the review, you should have a strong understanding of what you get when you sign up for Everlasting Portfolio. Now we come to the most important question – how much does it cost?

Everlasting Portfolio is available for $1,599 per year. This subscription will renew automatically every year.

Unlike other Motley Fool services, there is no monthly subscription option. This is reasonable when you consider the service’s core offering – the portfolio. When you sign up, you get instant access to Tom’s personal portfolio. If you could simply pay for a month and cancel, many people would simply replicate the portfolio and bail.

While the $1,599 price tag is steep, it comes with a 30-day guarantee. That said, this isn’t a straight money-back guarantee. It’s a transferrable credit. If you are unhappy with Everlasting Portfolio, you can reach out to the customer service team and get a credit towards another Motley Fool service.

Is Everlasting Portfolio Worth the Price?

At $1,599 per year, Everlasting Portfolio is one of the Fool’s most expensive services. In contrast, both Stock Advisor and Rule Breakers are available for $99 per year.

So, how does Everlasting Portfolio justify the steep price, and is it worth it?

There are a few points to hit here.

First, the offering is much different than the Fool’s other services. You are paying to get access to Tom’s multi-million dollar personal investment account. By analyzing Tom’s portfolio, you can attempt to build your own portfolio similarly – and hopefully achieve similar returns.

As for whether or not the price is worth it, it really comes down to the size of your portfolio. I recommend comparing the membership fee to the size of your portfolio to determine how much you need to make back for it to be worth it and how feasible that type of performance is.

For example, if you have $5,000 to invest, it doesn’t really make sense to spend $1,599 on an advisory service. The membership fee alone represents 32% of your available capital. You would have to make an extra 32% return just to breakeven. While there have been years when the portfolio achieved such results, they are not the norm. The Stock Advisor subscription would probably be a better option for you.

That said, if you have $100,000 to invest, the $1,599 membership fee only represents 1.6% of your portfolio. It would be reasonable to assume the service could make you at least an extra 1.6% in stock market returns.

You should also consider your current portfolio. If you are just getting started with investing in stocks, Everlasting Portfolio can be an excellent tool for building a portfolio of strong stocks. The service can also be used to expand and diversify an existing portfolio.

If you have enough investment capital to justify the purchase, Everlasting Portfolio is a good service to build a strong portfolio. You could probably get away with paying for a single year as opposed to renewing yearly. During that time, you could build a strong portfolio and then transition to the Stock Advisor program for monthly stock picks to tune up your portfolio.

Everlasting Portfolio vs. Everlasting Stocks

If Everlasting Portfolio is too pricey but you like the idea of mimicking Tom Gardner’s portfolio, you might also consider Motley Fool Everlasting Stocks. This is a stock picking service similar to Stock Advisor and Rule Breakers, but the stock recommendations come from Tom’s Everlasting Portfolio. You also get immediate access to 15 stocks that are already in the Everlasting Portfolio.

The benefit to Everlasting Stocks is that it’s much cheaper than Everlasting Portfolio. It only costs $299 per year, the same as Rule Breakers. You can also get Everlasting Stocks as part of Motley Fool’s Epic Bundle for $499 per year.

The drawback to Everlasting Stocks is that you miss out on the portfolio management aspects that Everlasting Portfolio provides. You might know which stocks Tom is investing in, but not how much or how that stock fits in with the rest of his portfolio.

Check out our full Everlasting Stocks review for more details.

Everlasting Portfolio Review: Final Thoughts

Motley Fool has always been known for its transparency. When we first reviewed the Stock Advisor program, we were impressed that the company provided a track record of every stock pick ever made in the program.

Everlasting Portfolio takes this transparency to the next level by providing a real-time look at Tom Gardner’s investment account. There are very few services that offer this type of feature and it’s definitely the star of the Everlasting Portfolio service.

If you are looking to build a strong, diversified portfolio with a reasonable amount of capital, Everlasting Portfolio could be a good fit for you.