By Tom Gardner with Peter Psaras (TMF Mycroft)
September 28, 2000

No level of investment experience will shield you from mistakes. If you make common stock investing a lifelong endeavor, you'll take your licks. You'll get bumped, bruised, occasionally battered, and sometimes nearly broken. Companies you felt were certain to succeed will stumble. In fact, no company enjoys pure, uninterrupted success. In its past, General Electric (NYSE: GE) has put up lackluster results. Century-old Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) risked bankruptcy during the Tylenol tampering scare, and $150 billion online giant America Online (NYSE: AOL) struggled to finance its way through a mess of network brownouts.

The public market ride isn't a carefree, clip-clopping horse and carriage through southern Vermont. It's more a wrenching clog of bumper cars or a marathon of thorns. When your companies falter -- because they will -- how well you evaluate their ability to get back up and win will largely determine whether you beat or lose to the market's average return. In that spirit of analysis, we've strung together some real companies that have faced recent difficulties.

• Nokia and Communication
• Lucent Technologies and Bad Financial Decisions
• Microsoft and the Justice Department
• Amazon.com and Volatility
• Starbucks and Brand Identity
• Nike and Inventory
• Gap and Financing
• Gillette and Acquisitions
• Coca-Cola and Marketing
• Tom's Final Thoughts
• Cast Your Vote and Share Your Opinion

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