Friday File: Best Picks of the Past 17 Years… Plus a Tale of Two Growth Stocks

Thanks for reading!

A big part of Motley Fool's success was in the earlier years (even going back to the late 90's) where they had huuuuuuge wins. Don't think the last 5-10 years they have distinguished themselves, except somewhat negatively.

Thanks! I like your system, whatever helps to develop some personal discipline around buying can really help over time.Part of the reason for putting actual buy prices in writing is to provide a shorthand for that analysis later on, when the market might be crashing and you wouldn't feel like buying. Having a buy price written down provides a reason to cheer a downturn, and "think greedy" at a time when it's usually very hard to have that mindset.

Don't know them super well, but I took a look -- here's my thinking:I would be surprised if Vicarious Surgical (RBOT) has any chance of getting through approval and selling a meaningful number of their single-port surgical robot systems -- Intuitive has a similar product already that's ramping up sales, in addition to their core da Vinci systems, and they have much more marketing and manufacturing might. Never say never, a disruptor can always emerge -- but I think the odds of success are every low for RBOT. Many have made similar attempts, none have really ever succeeded in building a meaningful installed base. They have $80 million in cash and no debt, so they're trading at much less than cash right now... but they're also burning about $50 million in cash on their R&D, and won't start their first clinical trial for their first version of the robot until next year, most likely, so investors are probably wise to drive the stock down to a "less than cash" valuation. The competition from Medtronic is much more likely to be "real" for ISRG, and could put some pressure on margins in the next couple years, but will probably take many years to really impact market share even if Medtronic's Hugo is well received.And on your other one... readers have been urging me to look at (or buy) Poet Technologies POET) for maybe a decade, based on their impressive innovation in optics (developing photonic-on-chip devices to speed up data centers, basically). They say they're launching the commercial version of their optical interposer this year and expect sales next year, and if that's true it might well quickly scale up to being worthwhile... particularly because they don't need a capital investment in manufacturing, they've outsourced that to a Chinese LED fab. The challenge for me is that they were heavily sold as a startup developing a prototype that was almost ready for orders back in 2015, and they were also a year from commercial sales in 2021. It does look to me like they've made impressive progress, but with little technology startups like this I've learned to wait until real revenue growth proves that it's more than just impressive presentations and optimism. I'd rather miss out on the first jump as the company becomes "real" than keep buying an R&D project in the years before it proves its got a viable product that will be accepted by customers and see rising demand.I know a lot of folks like to "get in early" on these kind of small technology disruptors, and that can occasionally lead to spectacular penny stock returns, so I don't blame folks for being tempted, or even for choosing to bet on some of these ideas from time to time... I get it. But I also try to resist, and keep any little speculations in these kinds of ideas very small at times when I can't resist entirely, because I see so very many of them pitched every year , and I know that the odds of success are very low, especially for folks who aren't really expert in that sector or niche (I've got a LOT of areas where I'm far from being an expert). In general, I find that it's too easy to get sucked in to companies that sound impressive, with cool "just about ready" technology, but for whatever reason are aren't able to get through the door with customers and generate actual sales, and end up going through reverse mergers and continuing to sell more and more shares to keep the dream alive and keep pushing the boulder up the hill. Bruised and battered, I try to remind myself to be a "wait for actual revenue" investor.

Thanks Alfred!

Which newsletter is pitching that? There have been several teases that sound similar over the years. Could be anything from publicly traded partnerships or muni bonds to tax liens.