May be it is the ibanker in me that makes look more into the footnotes than ever. Just as I was catching up on financial news I noticed this promotion from fool.com (Motley Fool).
Take a closer look of the advertisement for the subscription of fool.com's "Hidden Gems". I saw this advertisement today (Nov 25, 2008). The footnote says the results are based on 4/21/08 from the date of recommendation (Whatever that is??) (and how convenient).
Now don't get me wrong:
I like Fool.com's tangential thinking and arguments in their articles related to investment opportunities. Although I may not use their information as a tool for personal investments, I do use it as a means to discover new segments/companies in a given segment and market information. Over these years, I have passively observed some of their recommendations and felt in general their stock picks did well.
However, I wish they were more candid in marketing their product. I would rather see fool.com post their Hidden Gems return adjusted for post-October 2008 market crash. S&P500 is down nearly 40% YTD. What is Hidden Gems' return? Do you want to pay $199 for this subscription when you don't how well it performed?
Fool.com - one suggestion. You would be better of showing your Hidden Gems performance vs S&P500 on month to month basis... even better you can lead us to a real-time link to the chart. Even if you have underperformed the S&P500 in the last two months, you could highlight
two things a) you outperformed S&P more than 50% of the time (if it is true) and b) you will come across a trust worthy source and build credibility.
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