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Bogus Ads From"The Motley Fool"

bearThe Motley Fool is one of the twenty most visited financial sites in the US according to comScore with monthly unique visitors of 1.536 million last month, making it slightly bigger than Google (GOOG) Finance.

The Motley Fool has developed a very unfortunate habit of running advertising which is not terribly credible. Maybe it does not matter if they pull well.

One of the most recent campaigns has an ad which says “Why Wal-Mart Is Doomed.” The message goes on to say that an expanding rival is forcing Wal-Mart to “revamp its stores or face extinction.” Not likely. The Fool also says that the stock in this mystery company is up 435% since they recommended it.

Once a reader has given The Fool his e-mail address, the site tells him that the mystery company is Costco (COST). The stock performances of Wal-Mart and Costco over the last few years are close to same.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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