PRESS RELEASE (EMBARGOED until after 11.59 pm, March 31):
Investment advisory business The Motley Fool has today announced it will no longer attempt to educate its members and readers against the perils of baseless stock market speculation, and will instead seek to capitalise from the growing trend. Also, and related, it sees a growing opportunity in electronics retailing, and will diversify its business by entering this exciting sector.
Formed in the US in 1993, and doing business in Australia since 2011, The Motley Fool has long considered itself a safe-haven from stock market speculation, instead priding itself on educating investors to help them find market-beating stocks and develop a long-term investing mindset.
Unfortunately, the recent speculative mania around GameStop (and the subreddit, Wall Street Bets) has convinced the company that the effort has come to naught. So, in a move described by Motley Fool spokesperson Flora Pilo as 'necessary', the company will now seek to cash in on the investor and consumer interest in two main ways.
LAUNCHES NEW RETAIL OFFERING
On the heels of renewed interest in US business GameStop, The Motley Fool is today announcing it will be entering the exciting electronics retail sector in Australia. The new stores, branded FoolStop, will sell gaming consoles, games and recorded entertainment.
After an extensive ideation process, the new logo will be: .
(The 'full stop' punctuation mark. Geddit… FoolStop / full stop!)
Pilo said, "We are also excited to have signed a deal with Atari to launch Pong 2 on the Atari 2600, exclusively at FoolStop". In addition, FoolStop will stock the largest range of audio cassette tapes and players in the country and will dedicate space in each store to laserdisc movies.
In choosing the name, The Motley Fool wanted a brand that incorporated both the company's heritage and the renewed investor interest in the suffix '—Stop', and is hoping to capitalise on that interest by listing on the ASX in exactly 12 months time. Indications from investment bankers are that adding 'Stop' should increase interest from retail shareholders by around 1000-fold, and could see the company valued at upwards of $1.4 billion.
In the never-ending quest for search-engine relevance, the logo — . — should also drive a spike in traffic, as people accidentally put full-stops into their search engines, or their cats walk over their keyboards. It is early days, but that could as much as double the brand value, and The Motley Fool is actively engaging with domain squatters to see if a trade sale of the business may deliver even more value, for search engine traffic, alone.
Lastly, The Motley Fool has submitted an application to trademark the full-stop and will be collecting royalties on its use. Please note that if the application is successful, the royalties will be back-dated to today, and we have deals in place with the major software companies to track usage and invoice customers.
Our lawyers suggest that you commence using alternative punctuation immediately. (And please note that the ellipsis "…" will be charged as three full-stops.)
We apologise for any inconvenience.
The Motley Fool will be crowdsourcing equity to fund the new business.
Offers (and acceptances) will only be made via Reddit and Twitter, where experience shows users are more 'risk tolerant' and prepared to 'invest' for reasons other than economic return.
(However, you can click here to email us an expression of interest and we'll send you a Twitter link.)
Targeting inexperienced or easily influenced investors on Reddit may be fortuitous in the very, very, very unlikely event that FoolStop isn't admitted into the ASX20 in the first three months of existence as a public company (or, goes broke). But, you've gotta take a punt, sometimes.
MOTLEY FOOL CHANGES ADVICE APPROACH
Separately, but related, the Reddit-inspired surge in investing interest, globally, has prompted a strategic shift in The Motley Fool's investment advisory business.
There are a number of planks to this new strategy.
Firstly, we announce the launch of Motley Fool Day Trader. This new Motley Fool service is being trialled today only, but, if successful, will be updated annually.
While 'annually' seems remarkably tardy for a service billing itself as 'Day Trader', we're mindful that short-term trading can be challenging, and in the event that somehow most of our members' money is lost to taxes, brokerage (and maybe even some losses… I mean, it's possible…), that gives them 12 months to save up to have another go.
Secondly, in the wake of the Reddit / Wall Street Bets phenomenon, The Motley Fool will advocate for regulatory changes.
No, not to have more educated investors. Or more protections.
Instead, we will petition ASIC and the media to stop referring to 'investing' and start using the term 'betting', instead. And in a good way.
We will encourage newspapers to stop printing (on paper and online) information like dividend yields and price/earnings ratios, which may otherwise cause some bettors (note, they'll no longer be called 'investors') to pause before plonking down their hard-earned on something they just read in a subreddit.
Additionally, we'll stop reporting on 1 month, one year, and 'all time' share price performance, too. Our reporting and analysis will concentrate on the last 5 seconds, 5 minutes and 1 hour, only.
It is also important that we 'get with the times', so henceforth, we'll be accepting (and preferring) the alternative spelling 'stonks', which the cool kids use to show they're one of the in-crowd.
We don't really know what 'stonks' is actually supposed to mean, but we assume it means the user is sufficiently cool, cynical and snarky — perfect for Twitter!
Pilo remarked:
We've seen the error of our ways. We used to do our very best to help our members and readers amass wealth slowly and steadily, buying quality businesses and letting time do the work. No more! We will, instead, take to reddit with gusto, seeking to create a movement of people prepared to throw their money at anything that moves, usually prompted by righteous indignation, which will have no impact, but feels good, even if we lose money. Let's stick it to The Man.
Of course we want to strenuously deny any calculated planning, here. There is only a casual, potential, unrelated and unintentional connection between our new reddit-based strategy and the launch of FoolStop. Any speculation that we're trying to sound or look like a company whose share price was recently launched into the stratosphere is completely coincidental. Promise. Pinky swear!
We know these changes seem sudden.
But there's only so long we can continue trying to be the voice of sanity, before just giving up and joining the rush.
Stonks, baby!
FoolStop, ftw!
#YOLO
But we're not completely heartless. We want to let our loyal members and readers in on the potential bonanza.
But you'll have to be quick. We can only let you sign up today!
So, to be part of FoolStop and/or get on the waiting list to join Motley Fool Day Trader, please click here and email us your expression of interest.
