9 "Self-Evident" Foolish Truths, No. 9: What We Mean by "Spiffy-Pop"

This week is the 120th Rule Breakers podcast, and as Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner looked back, he realized he's covered a whole lot of subjects in those shows. More to the point, with all those episodes behind him, there are some areas he may not have covered in detail in a while. So he's getting back to basics with a set of ideas he thinks any Foolish investor ought to take for granted -- because he's not taking it for granted that everyone knows them.

In this segment, he defines an investing term unique to the Motley Fool: the spiffy-pop.

A transcript follows the video.

A full transcript follows the video.

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This video was recorded on Oct. 11, 2017.

David Gardner: Foolish Self-Evident Truth No. 9: This is the definition of a term that I've taken on as my own screen name. If you ever join us at Fool.com and come to our discussion boards in Rule Breakers or Stock Advisor, we each have screen names and my screen name is TMFSpiffyPop. I want to make sure that everybody still listening to me this week knows exactly what a spiffy-pop is.

Let's pretend that you paid $63.37 for a stock that you bought eight years ago. I don't know how many shares you bought, but it was a good buy. Good job. You bought at $63.37. And let's pretend that tomorrow that stock goes up $65 in one day. Maybe it's at $700 a share these days. And when it goes up $65 that's about a 10% gain for you which might sound like a pop. About at 10% people would [call it] a 10% pop.

But you and I now know that something even more impressive happened. You just got a spiffy-pop because you made more in a single day than the cost basis you paid way back then. You made $65 a share in one day and you only paid $63.37 for that stock in the first place. That is not just a pop ladies, gentlemen, and Fools. That is a spiffy-pop.

And I invented the concept for investors -- people who by definition act long term. We don't get a lot of rah-rah. We're not often invited on CNBC for our short-term market viewpoint. I wanted to have some kind of a concept. A rallying cry. A thing that could be a goal for any new investor that we could do together, and I'm really happy to say that here in 2017, across the Motley Fool services, I can now count 29 spiffy-pops that have already happened for our members this year.

And without bragging here, I should mention that once a stock does its 13th spiffy-pop -- it hits its baker's dozen -- once it happens for a 13th time for, let's say, Netflix, we stop counting. So I'm not including in my stat of 29 spiffy-pops across Motley Fool services this year the dozens and dozens that happened from Netflix, or Priceline, or Amazon.com, which when they make 1% moves these days generate spiffy-pops that are no longer interesting. That's why we call that 13th and final spiffy-pop for any stock the "forget-me pop" because we just don't pay attention anymore. It's boring.

So, now you know. By holding to, let's say, the 53rd minute of this week's podcast, now you know what a spiffy-pop is and what I think you should make a laudable goal that you surely will achieve if you just purpose toward the Foolish self-evident truths that I tried to lay down in front of you this week.

John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. David Gardner owns shares of Amazon, Netflix, and Priceline Group. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon, Netflix, and Priceline Group. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.