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Disclaimer & Disclosure

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When investing, your capital is at risk. The value of your investments can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you put in.

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The content of this article is provided for information purposes only and is not intended to be, nor does it constitute, any form of personal advice. Investments in a currency other than sterling are exposed to currency exchange risk. Currency exchange rates are constantly changing, which may affect the value of the investment in sterling terms. You could lose money in sterling even if the stock price rises in the currency of origin. Stocks listed on overseas exchanges may be subject to additional dealing and exchange rate charges, and may have other tax implications, and may not provide the same, or any, regulatory protection as in the UK.

Watching out for your money

The Motley Fool aims to help you make the most of your money. While we offer plenty of information and suggestions on how to do this, the power to act on this information, and the responsibility that comes with it, lies with you.

Given that, this disclaimer protects you as much as it does us. We set out below some key points you should bear in mind when using our site. These should be read in conjunction with our terms & conditions of service.

A few words about Internet fraud

The FCA has more information about Internet fraud.

Your money, your decision

The Motley Fool does not guarantee the accuracy, veracity, or completeness of any information provided on our website, and we will not be responsible for any errors or omissions in articles or postings, for links embedded in messages, or for any results obtained from the use of such information.

The Motley Fool will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by a reader’s reliance on information obtained from our articles or from any links provided within. We strongly caution you not to rely just on the information you find on our site to inform your decisions — rather, use it as a starting point for doing your own independent research. You should then decide for yourself the accuracy and merits of the information on our site.

Data and analysis

In the material we make available on our website, we rely on a wide variety of sources and other websites. We believe these sources of data to be accurate and reliable, but sometimes they may not be.

The Motley Fool makes no claims or representations as to the accuracy, completeness, or truth of any material contained in our areas. Nor is The Motley Fool liable for any errors or delays in the content or transmission of the data on our site.

Our advertisers and sponsors

Our site and email products include third-party advertisements. We don’t comment about the content of advertisements, but we will never knowingly run one that is untrue or misleading. The appearance of an advert on our site or in one of our e-mails does not mean that we endorse the advertiser’s goods or services. Please note that The Motley Fool is not responsible for the accuracy of any advertising material or the usefulness of an advertised product or service.

The Motley Fool will not be liable for any damages or costs of any type arising out of or in any way connected with your use of a company’s service or product advertised in any area of our site or in one of our emails.

What does a ‘TMF’ username mean?

You will see some people with the prefix ‘TMF’ in their username are TMF personnel.

TMF staff members are drawn from a wide circle of daily life. Most of them are completely outside the investment field in their professional lives and are not to be considered professional analysts or investment advisors. Any weight you ascribe to their opinions should be based on their ability to analyze a company or its products and services.

A variety of opinions makes a market

The Motley Fool does not dictate what its staff or freelance writers say about a company. In fact, their opinions may differ substantially as to the value of specific investments, even those recommended by our premium newsletter services. A variety of opinions is what makes a market — and what makes us Motley!

Our writers are permitted to write about or discuss, shares in which they have a beneficial interest, but they must disclose that interest, either in the article or post concerned, or in their user profile.

For a more detailed explanation of our policy on allowing — nay, encouraging — a diversity of opinion please see What Does It Mean To Be Motley?

Disclosure and trading rules

When any Fool writer writes about a stock that he or she has a position or beneficial interest in, that fact is disclosed at the end of the article.

All The Motley Fool employees and contractors are required to publicly disclose their current individual positions on their personal profile pages on our website. (We do not disclose the individual stocks that might be in any investment funds held.)

We hold shares in some companies through our premium real money portfolio service, Pro, and recommend others in Share Advisor and Hidden Winners. To be fair to our paying members, we do not disclose our share holdings in our free content for at least 30 days starting from when we make the share purchase or initial recommendation. After the 30 days has elapsed, we will disclose our ownership/recommendation until we close out our entire position.

Our US parent company, The Motley Fool, LLC (Fool US, for short), may also have positions in the securities mentioned in our articles. Since we have no non-public knowledge of our parent company’s holdings, Fool US’s holdings are not disclosed in our free or premium content. The Fool US has its own disclosure policy.

In addition to the above disclosure requirements, we work under additional trading restrictions and guidelines. These restrictions require that The Motley Fool employees and contractors:

  • must hold any stock they own for at least 10 full market business days. (No day trading allowed—as if we’d want to!)
  • cannot write about a stock in the period of 2 full market business days before, to 2 full market business days after, purchasing or selling the stock.
  • must notify our compliance department every time they buy or sell a stock, regardless of whether they have written about it.

We also use numerous freelance writers who:

  • must hold any stock they own and that they write for The Motley Fool about for at least 10 full market business days.
  • cannot write about a stock in the period of 2 full market business days before, to 2 full market business days after, purchasing or selling the stock.

Credit card advertisers

We partner with credit card issuers and banks to provide relevant products, services, and offers aimed at helping individuals improve their financial lives. We Fools do receive compensation from these partners. This compensation may even impact how products offers are displayed on this site. Rest assured however, that independence and transparency are what matters most, regardless of compensation. Our mission is to be a devoted finance advocate and to cut through the noise.

We may issue recommendations for preferred partners that we believe in and/or use ourselves. Keep in mind, this site may not include all available offers from our partners. For example, there are thousands of credit cards available. We’ll highlight a fraction of them. All picks are made at the editorial discretion of The Motley Fool editorial team.

We also work diligently to keep information accurate and up to date. This information may differ from partner sites on occasion.

The following financial companies currently provide us compensation:

Prepaid card issuers:

  • icount

Brokerages:

  • Hargreaves Landsdown
  • interactive investor

Last Updated: 01/02/2019