It's time once again to dust off Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner's old writings and pull some lessons forward into the light of today. In this podcast we discuss buying stocks that you already own, annual predictions, risk ratings, and keeping a record of your investment decisions. We look back in order to be smarter about looking forward!
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A full transcript is below.
This video was recorded on April 02, 2025
David Gardner: I got a secret for you. Actually, it's a secret weapon for you as an investor today. One word for you and no. It's not plastics. History. History. It's secret because most people don't have much of it. They follow financial media outlets, which through TV and social media display and promote such a short memory, quoting stocks minute to minute, throwing the bells and whistles of our attention at whatever's just happened. Well, as a Fool, I love to look back. The lessons we really learn, learn and earn are a consequence of observing and living through history, measured in years, not hours or days. Well, for years, I wrote short essays to kick off our monthly Motley Fool issues.
I'm a quoting, as I say that they used to be snail mail mailed out to members back in the day. Well, today, the Motley Fool is, of course, pretty much fully digital and wedon't do paper copies anymore, and we don't do opening essays. But I put a lot of time into those essays, and they occurred over a long narrative arc of market history 2002-2017, 15 years worth of investing lessons in Motley Fool Stock Advisor and Rule Breakers. In this world of now now now, I say, you and I open up April 2025 by getting smarter, happier, and richer today for the lessons learned from yesterday. Only on this week's Rule Breaker Investing.
Mary Long: It's the Rule Breaker Investing podcast with Motley Fool co founder David Gardner.
David Gardner: Welcome back to Rule Breaker Investing. March Market Cap Madness. Most of the madness, even the sports madness is just about over. We had a lovely mailbag last week. Really enjoyed that. Thank you all for your wonderful notes. I enjoyed sharing my 20 favorite words, especially. But that was then, this is now, and let's get into it, essays from yesterday. Volume 7. This is the seventh in the series. And we last brought you the previous episode 7 months ago. It was September 4th of last year. So a couple of ground rules about how this series works. First of all, I completely randomize which essays I'll be sharing with you. So I don't know ahead of time until we plan this podcast, what I'll be speaking about, and I randomize it. Now, I wish I could cherry pick my best and favorite essays written over the years. I guess I like all of them.
It's just that some of them were more right than others. So you never know how right or wrong I'll be with any of these. It's completely randomized, and often I'll refer to some stocks. So we get to look them up now and see how they've done since and we're always going to have some doozies both ways. That's the first ground rule randomized. The second is they're in chronological order. So we go from earliest to latest. For example, this particular episode, I'll be sharing an essay from May 2003. That was one of our earliest Motley Fool Stock Advisor issues. Then we'll jump forward to 2013, 15 and 16. Now, what matters isn't so much what I was saying back then, though, it's fun. What matters is what we can learn from it now. The purpose of the Motley Fool is, of course, to make you smarter, happier, and richer. I'm looking to do all three every week on this podcast, but especially this week, focusing on that word smarter with this one. Before we get started, as I shared at the start of the year, my 2025 book, Rule Breaker Investing is available for pre order now after 30 years of stock picking. This is my magnum opus, a lifetime of lessons distilled into one definitive guide and each week until the book launches on September 16. I'm sharing a random excerpt. We break open the book to a random page, and I read a few sentences. So let's do it. Here's this week's page Breaker preview. It's one sentence from early on in the book quote by the way, I need to take a deep breath for this quote. Here's my longest sentence of the book. Apologies ahead of time, but it just feels right to deliver this in one mouthful.
Even though we disagreed on one key point with Jack Bogle, the founder of both Vanguard and of the Index Fund revolution, that individual investors should not, he said, buy individual stocks, we say you should. We dearly love Jack as a person and what he stood for and did in this world, which was to help wipe it of bad advisors and the compensation systems that drove those people because of overpriced opaque schemes, Ponzi but others, too, that were enabled by a status quo where the average person wasn't educated about money and thus, as an adult, was walking into a red light district of financial choices where even some of the cops couldn't be trusted. That's this week's page Breaker preview to pre order my final word on stock picking shaped by three decades of market crushing success. Just type Rule Breaker investing into amazon.com, barnes and noble.com, or wherever you shop for fine books. And thank you to everyone is pre ordered. That means a lot to me. All right, essays from yesterday, volume seven. Rick Engdll, if I could get please, a little bit of wayback music. In fact, as we fire up our Wayback music machine, we need to go way way back with this one, Rick. The month was May 2003, and this was the introduction to Motley Fool Stock Advisor. It was entitled Back then we didn't have really titles for these. Later, we eventually dreamed up the idea of titling these essays. So if you go back to it, you'll see the title of this is introduction to May 2003 issue. And here is that essay.
Dear reader, if you've been checking our stock scorecard hourly and be honest, who hasn't you may be convinced that investing is a bit of a crapshoot. Certainly, as the war unfolds, emotion and sentiment always at work in our financial markets are working double time. Hence, the wild swings as reflected in our scorecard. But I assure you, there's nothing random or irrational about stock investing. Over the long term, if the US economy grows, so too will the stock market. And in all markets, good and bad, well managed companies, particularly those that consistently surprise investors with their businesses and cash earnings eventually see their stocks head higher. The secret is to find those companies and have the courage to buy them in good times and bad. Sometimes you don't have to look very far. Late last summer, a few months after we launched our Motley Fool Stock Advisor, my brother Tom had a curious thought. Why he proposed? Don't we each take time out in an upcoming issue? To review our past picks. We could assign letter grades to each one for the company's business prospects, another for valuation, and then re select whichever was our favorite at the time. Foremost, Tom thought you'd want our latest thinking on our prior picks, but he was also stressing that we're not too hell bent on finding a new stock each month. After all, if we're to give you our single best idea each month, why would we exclude past picks? Now, initially, I disagreed. He is my brother, after all, insisting, among other things that our readers expect new ideas, new stocks every month. But Tom is right. I agreed to update my pick in a later issue, which turned out to be December.
But when the time came to re select, I couldn't settle on just one. So I covered the names with my hand, and I simply scanned the page to see which stock had graded out the best and as I lifted my hand from the page, I saw beneath it the word Marvel. Rest, as they say, is history. The stocks up 64% in the few months since. I'll be the first to point out that Tom's suggestion and methodical approach prompted this great re selection, one that perhaps ironically has outperformed all of his picks so far. I hope you re upped on Marvel, and you can thank Tom if you did. Each month we provide our very best stock ideas right then, right there, looking at our standard investment horizon of at least three years. Often, that means a new idea, but not always. But by all means, recognize that when we re select a stock, we're saying that stock is a best bet right then, right there at that price. If you've already invested some, we're saying up the anni, invest some more. And why not? When we make a boring re selection of a previously written up stock, the returns need not be boring at all. Geez, I only wish all my stocks were up 64% in four months.
In fact, take a look at the stocks Tom and I have re selected so far. And there's a short table with returns I won't share right now, but I'll speak to it in a minute. And remember, these returns are since the stocks were re selected. Notice, too, that none of our re selections has lost money, and as a little group, our re selections have heartily outperformed the market. Sample size is a bit limited here. There were only five re selections at that point. So we draw grand conclusions at our own peril. Still, my sense is that we do better with these picks because we know the companies even better the second time round.
The moral, a single best idea is a single best idea, regardless of whether you've seen it before. One could even argue that you should be more confident in a re selection than a new stock and thus far, our returns bear that out. Next month, Tom will review his selections to date and re op his favorite, and I'll do the same the following month. But now we have two new selections for you until then, Tom, over to you and that is the end of introduction to May 2003 issue. The first thing I'd like to note about that here in April of 2025 is that essay was published on April Fool's Day. It was the May 2003 issue, but like a lot of magazines and other publications in paper back then, our so called May issue actually got published on the first of the previous month. So here we are recording on Tuesday, April 1, April Fool's Day here in 2025.
And this was literally published what I just shared with 22 years ago today. And my next note, it had been a very poor stock market. The dot bomb crash of 2001 was still settling out in early 2003. There was a war breaking out at the time in the Middle East. There was a lot of angst and doubt around stocks. People who held real estate at that time, 2003, looked like the smart ones. In fact, my brother's essay the following month was all about how people think too much of real estate these days and they've written off the stock market. People who owned stocks in May 2003 looked like rubes. Now, it is worth noting 22 years to the day later that the stock market is up 550%, the S&P 500 over these 22 years, and by the way, Motley Fool's Stock Advisor is up way more than that. Two more quick reflections for you. The first is, Tom innovated. It was such a simple innovation, but much credit to him.
He said, Let's repick a stock because up until that moment, we've been publishing stock advisor from March of 2002, so it was now more than a year later. And we'd just been picking one stock after another new each time and Tom said it doesn't always have to be new. And the results that came forthwith tell their own great story. I'm not going to read to you the table that was published in that essay. An stock advisor member can go back and read it. But basically, yeah, we had Marvel up 64% with the S&P down 2%. That was from December of 2002 to when I wrote this on, of course, April Fool's Day. So it had only been a few months. We also had Whole Foods up. Amgen was about a market performer, as was Activision Blizzard. The group as a basket. This is almost like its own five stock sampler back the five stocks were up 18.3%. The market was down 0.1% on average. So they were well outperforming the market, making, of course, the key point that Tom was trying to make, which is that sometimes your best idea can be one that you've already had, and just re upping that is a wonderful way to win as an investor. So again, much credit to Tom and from that day forward, I would go on to pick Marvel again and again. And a year later, 2004, I would pick Netflix and then Netflix again, and again, over the years. And one year after that, NVDA.
And a few years later, I repicked Nvidia again. And then, of course, again and again. And we eventually turned those sometime rerecs into a new feature. Longtime members will know Best Buys now was eventually born in Rule Breakers and Stock Advisor. And we turned that sense that we should relook at our existing favorite stocks in our portfolio and make that a mainstay of our services. And as the years went by, it became the most clicked feature when we released something for Stock Advisor or Rule Breakers, not our new PI. The most popular feature were the Best Buys Now, the five from past PIs that we would say, With that new issue with that new month, we like them today. Even more or just as much as we did back then. So this all makes a really good point. And the last thing I want to say is performance. I mean, I love that I included that little table in that little essay 22 years ago. I love that it was 22 years ago, that I can tell you today, 22 years later, how the market has done and how we have done since, and I love that our stock advisor site shows you all our good picks.
Like Marvel and all our bad picks. We'll be mentioning a few more this, this week over time. I love, of course, that we've crushed the market. The performance of my Best Buys now in particular, tells an eloquent story, supporting Tom's vision in 2003, to start re picking stuff we'd always picked. Many lessons embedded in that essay, but maybe the biggest takeaway for you and me here, not just in 2025, but any year going forward, is when you have new money coming in, take a hard look at stocks you already have in your portfolio. If you're listening to be Rule Breaker Investor habit number two is to add up. Don't double down, tend to add new money. If you're going to add it to existing picks, add it to the ones that are going up to your winners, throw good money after good, as I've often said, is maybe a great takeaway as we close out Essay number one.
Let's move on to essay from yesterday, number two, and now we're going forward through time. It's almost ten years after I wrote that first essay that February 2013 was the page we turned on our calendars, and I go to my Rule Breaker's opening essay in that February 2013 issue, which was entitled New Year's Resolution. Here it is. At the start of this new year, it's natural to look ahead and wonder, what kind of year will this be for our breakers? January triggers humanity to look 12 months ahead, and that's much longer term than most people usually think about their money, yet it's still just a fraction of the three to five year increments that have always guided us here at Rule Breakers. Of course, the media outlets want market calls, but I rarely make them. Now, last year, in this intro, I did write January 2012. "I'm not a predicting fool, but I have a pretty bullish feeling about the NASDAQ performance in 2012 based prominently on what's happened since July 2011." We had all watched our returns, and some of our favorite companies temporarily cave in at the end of 2011, so I was going with my gut. It was the right call for 2012, amid all the political grandstanding and "fiscal cliff" and some doomsday economic forecasts, yes, Virginia, the NASDAQ really did rise 14%. Again, I'm not a predicting fool, but I have a pretty bullish feeling about 2013. If I had to make a call, I'd say NASDAQ 2013 up. The percentages are with us. Historically, the market rises two years out of three. You just wouldn't know it based on how the media covers the markets. Also, not helping is the lack of financial education.
Worldwide. People tend to fear what they don't know, and I suspect most Americans think the stock market's returns look parabolic, when the truth is they're hyperbolic, but enough hyperbole NASDAQ 2013 up. But I could be wrong, and rule Breaker Investing isn't about one year market calls anyway. Another thought for the year ahead. In 2013, we promised to make extra efforts to make the best use of your time. For instance, on the day that Zipcar got bought out by Ava's Budget, did you get direct to your inbox an email featuring our perspective? You did if you were a Rule Breaker member who'd put Ticker symbol ZIP on his or her my scorecard. Of course, the information could be found on the site as well, but that's one example of us sending relevant info to those most concerned well, spamming rule Breaker members who presumably don't care much. The key is that you help us help you by here using my scorecard. There's one idea we have for improving our service. Your ideas are always welcomed at our RB members suggestions Board for 2013 up or down Fool on. That was the end of New Year's resolution, my Rule Breakers February 2013 essay. My first note, looking back now, and this is true every year.
People always want the annual prediction, don't they? It doesn't really matter to Rule Breaker investors, but near the start of every new year, the media can't help itself. I'm sure we do this at fool.com, these days too. They want to think about the year ahead and have people make calls that, by the way, are usually unaccountable. Because rarely do I ever hear a year later someone go back and say, Here's what you predicted on this podcast or this television show a year ago about this or that market year. In fact, note number two, let's note that the calls never really extend more than a year. At the start of a year, they just want your call for that year. If you try to say, I'd like to make a two year prediction or a five year prediction, nobody's really interested. In fact, after you start that year with your market prediction, the rest of the year, the financial media tends just to settle down into a quarter by quarter mode. It's largely just about this next earnings report, and after this one, well, the one after that. Everyone's attention shrinks further from a year where we started the year looking a year ahead, which was, by the way, always short term anyway. But then we just get down to each quarter.
Now, I know any regular listener of this podcast, my fellow Rule Breaker, I know you know this isn't the right way to view the stock market or your portfolio. Two more notes about that SA. The third was, you're probably wondering, how did the market do in 2013, and I'm happy to say, Hey, I was right. The NASDAQ was up 34% that year. It clearly came just maybe a year or two before I settled into what has become my habit on this podcast and when I'm on other people's podcasts, my habit each year to say, I think the stock market's going up this year. That's my single market prediction I make at the beginning of every year. The joke, and it's not really a joke totally, but the joke is the market goes up two years out of three, so I have an incredibly good record as a market timer.
Most market timers are flipping coins right about half the time. I'm right two thirds of the time because at the start of each year, I say, I think the market's going up this year. I can see from that 2013 essay I hadn't yet settled into that rhythm. I was still trying to call it one year at a time. Finally, I'd like to note that whether it was 2013 or when we launched the Motley Fool on AOL, August 4th of 1994, or right here today, April Fool's Day, as we record, in 2025, we're always looking to improve our services. That was the final paragraph of that essay, New Year's resolution. I was pointing out that people who were using our My Scorecard tool on the site at the time, if they had Zipcar, ticker symbol ZIP listed there, they got a special email from us with our write up about Zipcar being bought out by Avis Budget, which in fact, it was years ago. People who didn't get that email, that's because they didn't list ZIP as a stock that was of interest to them on their My Scorecard tool. I will just say, I hope we're better today in 2025, it's saving you time and being relevant to you than we were 12 years ago when I wrote that. I'll always say the Motley Fool is at its best when we combine empathy. We're all fellow armchair investors.
We combine empathy with you, with intelligence, with our best ideas to serve you up something that's helpful and that respects your time. That's always been the aim. You can see I was speaking to that in February 2013 when, by the way, Zipcar got bought up by Ava's Budget, Zipcar wasn't really much of a winning stock for us at Motley Fool Rule Breakers despite that buyout. Speaking of Molly Full Stock Advisor, if you're enjoying this week's podcast, and you're ready to take your investing chops to the next level. Head over to fool.com/signup to join Motley Fool Stock Advisor, our flagship Investing Service. As a Stock Advisor member, you get at least two new stock picks each month. That includes some rerec as well, rankings of a whole scorecard of companies and access to all episodes of our premium podcast, and that's Stock Advisor Round table. That shows only available to premium Motley Fool members. It focuses on Foolish recommendations and takes a deeper dive into the businesses we cover, featuring Fool analysts you already know and love from listening to Motley Fool Money. My brother Tom Gardner appears regularly on bonus episodes of Stock Advisor Round Table to discuss what's new in the Stock Advisor universe and answer questions sent in from Motley Fool members.
Again, just show up, point your browser, fool.com/signup. See you online. On to essay from yesterday. Number three, let's go forward two more years in time. Essay number two is February 2013. This one is February 2015, and it's from Motley Fool Stock Advisor. The title is risk ratings for new members. Now here's that essay. I, David, this month, have never been satisfied by traditional risk measures applied to stocks. Most common is probably the proverbial high, medium low, subjective blase labels that leave me cold. Or typically in academia, risk equates to the Beta of a stock, Beta measures how exaggerated are a stock's moves relative to the averages. While a stock's past volatility may be a risk factor, by no means, is it a real indicator of the true risk of holding a stock for the long term. I think rating a stock's risk should be more forward looking, more fun, more educational, and indeed, more numerical.
For true investors, the long term minded, like you and me, we should be more focused on the business than the stock itself. That's why for a few years now, our team has been putting numbers on the riskiness of our stocks. With so many new members of stock advisor joining in the past year, I want to make sure you know of this resource. I define risk as the likelihood of permanently losing a large amount of your investment. Our risk ratings range from zero, no risk at all to 25. Insanely risky. The higher the number, the higher the risk. To obtain our ratings, we ask 25 yes or no questions of a business and its stock, and each no adds plus one to our risk rating. Our set of questions is open to all, meaning that any member can embrace and employ our methodology. How might you use this new tool? Lots of ways. Here are a few. One, look at the risk ratings we published for your stocks in order to gain greater intelligence, assessing how safe or dangerous each is to hold, invest accordingly. For instance, both amazon.com and Gilead Sciences are worth about $140 billion, but one has a safe risk rating of six, while the other is significantly riskier. Ten. To see which is which, visit our site's recommendations tab, looking at the active stocks in order to see the ratings for every stock we cover. Two, familiarize yourself with the methodology and begin to use it to rate other stocks you're considering or hold outside of stock advisor.
Three, come onto our discussion boards and share your findings. Every act of sharing speeds up someone else's investment research and knowledge. You will be helped and can help others with this. It's worth noting that every starter stock on our list has a risk rating of eight or lower. We really believe every new stock advisor member should load up on a dozen or more stocks from our service, starting with the safer ones. Happy Fool year. Well, a few reflections back on risk ratings for new members, again, written ten years ago, February 2015, I continue to believe that risk ratings are a needed and great resource for investors. We still use them in some places on our site, I think, but I've made a real point of using that methodology for a podcast or two over the years, just to refresh it and make sure you, especially if you're a new listener, know of the methodology and the resource. In fact, we last did a calculating risk Foolishly episode. That's the name of the series on January 24th of last year. 1.24.24, check it.
In fact, I had two Foolish friends come on, and we ran Chewy Ticker symbol CHWY and Kinsale Capital Group KNSL through those full 25 questions, two completely different companies with different risk ratings, but all united by the same system, which yielded a number for each. It's also a fun note coming out of March Market Cap Matis. It's a fun note to note that you can go back and listen to that podcast January 24, 2024 and learn the whole system Chewy and Kinsale, and you're led through it by the two Fools who joined me that week, Emily Flippen and Andy Cross, the very two who closed out our world championship a couple of weeks ago on the Market Cap Game Show. It was obviously not something I would have expected back in January 2024, that that would be true. But it's really fun to note that Emily and Andy talk you through my risk ratings methodology in that podcast. By the way, I'm reminded we should do another one of those this year. In fact, if anybody would like to write into this month's mailbag, rbi at fool.com is our email address. Of course, I love getting your mail about any of our episodes, but reacting to this one, if there's a particular company or request you have about maybe doing our next in the calculating risk Foolishly series, maybe this summer, make me a suggestion.
So that's one thought back reading that essay from 10 years ago. Before I go to my second and final reflection on this essay, I do just want to mention I love the risk rating system because the higher the number, the higher the risk. So to me, it's very intuitive. And in fact, we've never given any stock a risk of zero. I've designed the system, so no stock would have a risk of zero because no risk at all will never be true of any equity you're thinking about putting into your portfolio. Anyway, there's a lot more I could say about that, but, A, you could listen to the podcast from last year or B. I'm sure we'll do one this year coming up this summer. My final reflection is just to note since I called it out in that essay, how amazon.com and Gilead Sciences have done since February of 2015, because, as I mentioned, they had the same market cap. That month, as I wrote that essay, they did have different risk ratings. As you might guess, Amazon had the lower risk rating of six, and Gilead Sciences had a higher risk rating at 10, not a crazy high risk rating, but markedly riskier. Here's how they've done since that month. Since that month, the S&P 500 is up 200%. So over the last 10 years, the stock market has tripled. Amazon.com is up 1,200%. That would be a 13 bagger using Peter Lynch's multibagger parlance that I lean on a lot. So Amazon is a 13 bagger.
In the meantime, Gilead Sciences is where its stock was 10 years ago. It's up 0%. Now, I'm not trying to make a point that our risk rating system is predictive and helps you pick out which stocks will beat, which others. I would also like to note, I picked Gilead Sciences along with Amazon. One has way outperformed the other, but those both have been Motley Fool picks, but it's fun to revisit that 10 years later and see how those stocks have done. All right, let's move on to our last one this week. Essay from yesterday number four, we'll jump it for just one more year. The year 2016, the month was June, and the Rule Breakers essay introducing the June 2016 issue was entitled What is infront of One's Nose. And here it is. I did my Rule Breaker investing podcast today, and on this one dated May 25, 2016, you can listen to it via iTunes, Spotify, etc. I pull a quote from an at RBI podcast follower on Twitter named At Wellington Randi. Randy's profile quote comes from George Orwell. To see what is in front of one's nose is a constant struggle. Love it. So true. You can hear more about my reflections on it in the podcast, but I want to add a couple of thoughts here. That line comes from Orwell's essay entitled In Front of Your Nose.
As is often the case when you find a great quotation, you're rewarded for going to the source, checking context, reading a bit more. And so I quote a little bit more from that essay. To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle. One thing that helps toward it is to keep a diary or at any rate, to keep some kind of record of one's opinions about important events. Otherwise, when some particularly absurd belief is exploded by events, one may simply forget that one ever held it. And now continuing with the second half of my Rule Breakers essay, What is in front of one's nose, I wrote two Rule Breaking thoughts for you. One.
This is one reason I love Motley Fool CAPS, @caps.fool.com, I can put my thumb up or down for any stock, be accountable, and be scored from that date forward for my opinion. Further, I can spend a little time typing in a few sentences as to why I put forth that opinion. I have now done it 392 times since the debut of CAPS in 2006, ten years of learning, ten years of keeping Orwell's words some kind of record of one's opinions about important events, has been an invaluable part of my learning and development as a stock picker and future thinker. Are you serious about learning to pick stocks? If you're not already using CAPS? Take Orwell and me up on our recommendation, keep some kind of record. And two, beyond CAPS, I have the benefit and sometimes detriment of having a live updated scorecard for every stock I've ever picked, here in Rule Breakers, and in Stock Advisor. That includes a full write up for each, elucidating the reasons for my and my team's recommendations.
That is also incredibly valuable, not just for me, but for you, you can go back and learn why we recommended Bydu in 2006, up 21 times in value. Or first solar in 2009, it lost 91% and everything in between. To close, what is in front of my nose these days, I think yours, too, is that we are at an unprecedented time of technological innovation. It will yield huge value for all of us, both as consumers and rule Breaker investors get invested with us and Fool on.
And that was What is in front of One's nose, the Rule Breakers intro from June 2016. If you're really interested in hearing more thoughts on the Orwell quote, as I started that essay, I did it right here on this podcast, which is a reminder that while I no longer do opening essays for Rule Breakers and stock advisor, those were only ever once a month or so.
I'm here with you every week, and when we reach July of this year, it will have ten years of a new fresh podcast every week from Rule Breaker Investing, thanks most of all, to my longtime producer Rick Engdol and, of course, many others. So while essays from yesterday no longer exist, I actually try to give you far more insights and add value to your life, trying to make you smarter, happier, and richer every week. And that has been true for years and years and something that I love doing this podcast. Well, a few more thoughts about what is in front of one's nose. The first is just that mention of Motley Fool CAPS, and I just want to say I'm sad about Motley Fool CAPS. As a resource, it's a pale shadow of what it once was. We really haven't invested that much or kept it up very well on our site. I do think that it is such a valuable resource, and I'm kind of sad about its present state. I do hope the company will make an effort to reinvigorate. I think there is such value to it. You know, I was reading Kevin Kelly's wonderful book, The inevitable, his book about technological predictions. He wrote it back around 2016. Motley Fool CAPS, he highlighted at one point in that book, which I took a lot of pride in 10 years ago or so. But now CAPS is hard to find at all on our site, and I would love to see that change. I can't move on to other reflections without making sure I reflect that. For those of you who've used CAPS and enjoyed it over the years, thank you. It's a way to add value to each other as investors, a community stock picking tool. And then one more thought, this one, much more about the stocks. And in fact, the ones I mentioned in that essay, I mentioned Baidu, which I think at that time, 2016 had been our number one performer in Motley Fool Rule Breakers up 21 times in value. It's actually down 50% since I wrote that essay. The S&P 500 is up 160% since I wrote that essay in June 2016, the S&P 500 up 160%, Baidu, down 50% First Solar. Also mentioned, up 160% right in line with the market. Why am I talking about these? Well, it's interesting just to know what's happened since. The rule Breakers team right near Christmas 2022 decided to jettison Baidu from our service, and they made a good call.
The stocks actually down 20% since. The market has done well since. Baidu has really ended up being an underperformer, even though it still has some cobwebs in my own personal portfolio. So congratulations to the rule Breaker team letting go a market underperformer these last several years. I also want to note First Solar and its journey through Motley Fool Rule Breakers. I'm referencing it in that essay as a stock that was down 91% for us, and we had sold it at that point. So that was a permanent record. It was. It was first picked in 2009, not a good stock market environment, and it lost a huge amount of value. 91% over the subsequent three years we sold disconsolately in 2012. And so there I was mentioning it a few years later, and that essay is our worst performer in Rule Breakers at the time. But I want to shout out again the Motley Fool Rule Breakers service because we repicked it First Solar a year after the essay that I just shared with you in July of 2017. It's my colleague Carl Teal, longtime Rule Breakers present day Rule Breakers team member. And as he wrote up, that recommendation of First Solar in July of 2017 he reflected on how we'd already picked it once and lost 91% of its value for our members. And I actually think it takes some gall, maybe even some courage to repick a stock for paying members that had already lost you 90% plus some years before, but Carl wrote and I quote from his By report onFirst Solar, he said, What's changed? Two key weaknesses have turned into strength by focusing on commercial installations rather than residential with those solar panels, of course, which is First Solar's business. And also, he wrote by greatly lessening its reliance on government incentives, First Solar has shown both resilience and adaptability, two traits we prize in this industry, resilience and adaptability. Well, that was from his write up in July of 2017, and I'm really happy to say that now years later, here's we embark upon April 2025 First Solar is up 178% beating the market by 20 percentage points. So my takeaway at the end of this essay and really at the end of this week's podcast is too often we convince ourselves we missed it.
We missed a stock. Either we didn't buy a winning stock in the first place or we did poorly with something, and we sold it and we write it off forever. So I want to congratulate the Rule Breakers team for being willing to go back in and re pick a stock that had already been such a loser. It reminds me in some ways of when I first picked Nvidia for Motley Fool Stock Advisor, because I'd been cheering against it. I recommended the rival of Nvidia, three DfX in the early days.The DFX didn't end up panning out well at all. In fact, Nvidia bought The DFX for a song, but I decided with some humility with my tail between my legs to eventually just recommend Nvidia, and I'm darn glad I did in 2005, and the rest is history. So often we convince ourselves that we missed a stock. People could have bought Nvidia or Amazon in 2005, 2010, 2015, 20. Some people still haven't bought them today and should here in 2025, convincing ourselves we missed it. And also sometimes we have a bad experience with the stock, and keeping an open mind, it's worth sometimes revisiting, not always, but reconsidering. And so shout out again to the Rule Breakers team for that. All right. Well, from introduction to May 2003 issue, which led off the podcast to what is in front of One's nose, which closes us out this week. There it was essays from yesterday, volume seven, for essays. As always, we acknowledge some horrendous mistakes, for example,First Solar 2009-12. Ouch but also some heartwarming and inspiring facts because all of these things happened, and I wrote about them at the time, and so by actually using history, as our secret weapon, harnessing the power of our wayback machine, we're having that opportunity together this week to reflect and take away some lessons that we can use this month, this year are investing lives going forward, all powered by essays from yesterday. Fool on.
Mary Long: As always, people on this program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and the Molly Fool may have formal recommendations for or against. So don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. Learn more about Rule Breaker Investing @rbi.fool.com.
