Five Years Later: The Honest Report Card on Our 2021 April Fools Portfolio

On April 1, 2021, in lieu of our annual April Fool's Day joke, The Motley Fool introduced a free real-money April Fool's Portfolio to help investors navigate the turbulent markets of the COVID-19 pandemic. Its mix of stocks and exchange-traded funds was positioned well to make money for long-term investors.

Now, five years later, we're back – as promised – to see how the portfolio did. And unlike many of our financial industry peers, we're completely transparent in tracking and showing every call we made, winners and losers alike. That's because we owe it to you, and we learn something from every investment we make, regardless of whether it makes money.

The final scoreboard

We started the April Fool's Portfolio with $50,000. As of March 31, 2026, that initial capital had grown to $51,380.

To state the obvious, that performance fell well short of our hopes. The S&P 500 (^GSPC +0.29%) had a total return of about 75% over that same period, compared to our roughly 3% return. Our stocks and ETFs ranged from being deeply negative to more than doubling in value, as you can see below.

Top winners and losers

What went right

From our top five performers, we've gotten some valuable takeaways. Apple largely met our expectations, relying on its loyal customer base to stay within its strong and growing ecosystem and generate rich free cash flow and market-beating shareholder returns. Berkshire Hathaway remained true to its core principles, steering clear of over-hyped trends and providing steady performance with a conservative balance sheet and disciplined capital allocation. Intuitive Surgical built on its leadership position in robotic surgery, enjoying steady growth in procedure volume, new system installations, and sales of consumables to sustain its competitive advantages and prosper. These are successful strategies investors should expect companies to execute well during good times and bad.

Our two top ETF investments also did what they were designed to do. The Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF underperformed the S&P 500 because small- and mid-cap stocks lagged the largest companies in the market, while the Vanguard Value ETF fell short of matching the market's return as investors largely favored growth stocks. Still, both funds met their goals of providing ballast as reliable core holdings for any market environment.

What went wrong

Our weakest performers also taught us useful if hard-won lessons. Teladoc exploded onto the scene early in the pandemic, but slowing growth and an ill-fated acquisition strategy failed to live up to the high expectations baked into the stock's rich valuation. Similarly, Paypal, Etsy, and Pinterest all saw their businesses thrive during pandemic-era lockdowns, but when consumers shifted back toward pre-pandemic pursuits, and when aggressive interest rate hikes pressured growth stocks generally, their shares couldn't sustain the high valuation multiple investors had previously been willing to give them. Even Disney's brand strength wasn't enough to guarantee it success in the rapidly changing entertainment industry, particularly as the economics of video streaming partially disrupted a business model that had worked for a century.

Handling volatile markets

The past five years were remarkable in many ways. 2021's low interest rates gave way to soaring inflation, aggressive rate increases, and 2022's bear market, which, as we saw with Teladoc, Etsy, and Pinterest in particular, disproportionately punished growth stocks. Speculation returned in 2024 and 2025 as excitement about artificial intelligence mounted, but recent geopolitical pressures reminded investors again that uncertainty is a constant part of the financial markets.

Investors should remember this going forward:

• Diversified portfolios can protect against the most extreme losses, even if they don't always result in market-beating gains.
• Even your best ideas won't always pan out. Markets continually remind us to be humble. Experience is a valuable teacher.
• This portfolio kept to its long-term time horizon, including both mature leaders and higher-risk stocks. We've built a valuable, replicable process that avoids the temptation to toss out a stock due to short-term losses. We'll keep using it.

What's next

At this point, we'll be liquidating the April Fool's Portfolio now that we've eclipsed the five-year mark. Radical transparency in investing is rare, and we hope we've shared a public model for long-term investors to use.

We can't give personalized advice about how to use the proceeds from this portfolio, but we remain committed to two key concepts. First, having a strong core in broad-based, low-cost ETFs and shares of proven businesses can offer solid results even in turbulent markets. Second, adding a risk-appropriate allocation to higher-risk, higher-reward stocks can spice up returns – as long as you can avoid chasing hype and instead stay disciplined with Foolish principles that emphasize durable competitive advantages, solid financials, and a long-term mindset.

Thanks for joining us on this five-year journey, and we wish you the best of investing success in the future!