Spiffy-Pop: What Does It Mean?

If you’ve been a follower of The Motley Fool for long, you’ve probably heard all kinds of terms that are ours alone. They may get a little confusing for people who are new to communities like Rule Breakers, but we’re here to help.

Spiffy-pop defined

Spiffy-pop defined

Spiffy-pop is a term coined by The Motley Fool’s Rule Breakers community: It refers to a stock that has increased in price more in a single day than it cost the investor initially. So, for example, if you bought a stock at $5 per share one day and it increased in price to $11 the next, that stock spiffy-popped.

In 2007, David Gardner asked the Rule Breakers community to help him invent a word to capture this phenomenon. Member Carol Binion came up with "spiffy-pop" as the winning verb that David selected out of 280 submissions. As he explained at the time, she "seemingly shares my bent toward the whimsical... seemingly understands what I will simply call the 'fizz' of language -- I've somehow been haunted by it."

A mere two days after announcing the winning words, Rule Breakers had its first stock spiffy-pop: Digital advertiser and marketer aQuantive received a buyout offer from Microsoft (MSFT 1.58%) and gained more than $38 that day. From its recommendation price of $25, that made aQuantive the service's first daybagger.

A debate rages back and forth over exactly what constitutes a spiffy. Is it, as some believe, anytime during the day that a stock rises more than your cost? Or, does the stock have to close above your cost? On April 29th, 2010 at 12:48am EDT, David Gardner attempted to close the debate with the simple statement, "Spiffy is for closers." In other words, the term's champion strongly sides with those who believe a true spiffy-pop closes above your cost, does not merely flit briefly above it early in the day and get daybagger credit. The only exception that David allows on this point are those who decide -- for better or worse -- to sell their daybagger intraday, locking out the position at a spiffy price.

But it doesn’t have to be a one-day increase; you can have a spiffy-pop across days, months, and even years. And stocks can spiffy-pop more than once. The only hard and fast rule is that your spiffy-pop isn’t official unless the price you’re basing it on was the closing price for the market day (no spiffy-pops allowed on morning highs or midday spikes).

Spiffy-pop vs. daybagger

Spiffy-pop versus daybagger

A lot of Motley Fool investing lingo comes about because the words we need simply don’t exist yet. There is a term for a stock that spiffy-pops: It’s a daybagger. That means its price has increased by more than your cost-adjusted investment in your shares.

When Netflix (NFLX 0.92%) is a daybagger, it spiffy-pops. Spiffy-pop is the verb that goes with daybagger. Rather than “daybaggering,” which sounds a little bit untoward, your stock spiffy-popped. It’s that simple -- no reason to make it any harder than it is. Spiffy-pop is the verb, daybagger is the noun.

Other types of spiffys

Other types of spiffys

There’s a small constellation of related terms. These have been created from the need to better describe what’s happening with an investment within Motley Fool communities. A few terms you might run into are:

• Spiffy-drop: A spiffy-drop is when your stock value drops in price more in a single day than you paid for it. It’s kind of the antithesis of things that are spiffy. Most of the time, this doesn’t happen until the stock has already seen large gains, so it’s still in a net positive position.
• Spiffy multi-pop: You might also see this referred to as something like a “spiffy three-pop.” Spiffy multi-pops happen when your stock not only spiffy-pops but does so several times over. If your stock increases by three times its original value in a single day, that’s a spiffy three-pop. (Very spiffy.)
• Forget-me-pop: The spiffy-pop train can’t ride on forever; at some point, those daybaggers are predictable and not that much fun anymore. That’s why David Gardner decided that after big number 13 on any given stock, it’s time to start looking for new spiffy-pops and stop counting the one that just keeps giving and giving. Number 13 is your forget-me-pop. (Of course, you can keep counting spiffy-pops. We’re not your mom.)
• Supernova: This is a rare type of spiffy-pop involving any of the stocks most widely held by our Motley Fool Stock Advisor members. Generally, “widely held” means a stock is among the top 20 holdings in aggregate. When one of these stocks spiffy-pops, it brings the whole community up, and we honor it with the moniker of supernova.

Foolish lore & examples

Foolish lore and examples

The most frequent Motley Fool premium services spiffy-popper -- long ago now a "forget-me-pop" -- is Priceline, now known as Booking Holdings (BKNG 0.47%). Stock Advisor's May 21, 2004 selection has a cost basis of $23.71. With the stock more than a 50-bagger, Priceline's spiffy-pops long ago stopped counting. Another early classic spiffy-pop stock has been Motley Fool Rule Breaker Intuitive Surgical (ISRG 0.72%). For three straight years (2007-2009), Intuitive Surgical spiffy-popped the week of July 20th! The 2007 daybagger was July 20th, while in both 2008 and 2009 Intuitive Surgical spiffy-popped on July 23rd. Perhaps July 23rd should be relabeled Spiffy-Pop Day.

The Motley Fool premium services' original spiffy three-pop occurred with the acquisition of Marvel by Disney (DIS 0.72%), announced on August 31, 2009. The Stock Advisor scorecard went nuts, and one of David Gardner's best stock picks got gobbled up. (The investment with its outstanding returns continues, though, as Disney.) Another key Motley Fool spiffy-pop was achieved by Motley Fool Rule Breakers with Tim Beyers's pick of Salesforce (CRM 1.14%), the second time Salesforce became a daybagger for The Motley Fool. This came soon after a very notable spiffy-pop for Amazon (AMZN 1.62%). That stock was first recommended by David Gardner for Stock Advisor at $15.98 on September 6, 2002. What made this spiffy even sweeter is that David's original cost basis on Amazon was actually much lower -- $3.21 in September 1997. Thus, Amazon's gain of $55.11 on April 24, 2015 was not only a spiffy three-pop for Stock Advisor members, but the first-ever spiffy deca-pop for those who've been with David and Amazon from the beginning. Every Motley Fool spiffy multi-pop is to be cherished of course. Only those Fools who have truly drank from this cup can appreciate the alluring and -- to most of the world -- mysterious flavor. The Motley Fool continues to work its hardest to "share the taste of spiffy" with as many people as possible in pursuit of our mission to help the world invest better.

History of TMF spiffy-pops

History of TMF spiffy-pops

This is an incomplete list of spiffy-pops achieved by Motley Fool premium services for members who've bought and held winners with us.

We stopped counting spiffy-pops in 2022 because they simply became too many -- the point has been made!