Boring Portfolio Report
Monday, July 14, 1997
by Greg Markus (TMF
Boring)
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (July 14, 1997) -- Seven of nine Boring stocks rose Monday, pushing the Borefolio to a 0.83% advance for the day and a new high, $66,576.
That daily gain easily bested those of the Dow and S&P 500, which ended a volatile session essentially unchanged. It lagged the impressive 21-point, or 1.41%, advance of the Nasdaq, however. The Nasdaq set its eighth consecutive new record, closing at 1524.
With a flood of quarterly earnings reports being released and stock options expiring on Friday, this week promises to be almost as fast-moving and undulating for stocks as it will be for Tour de France riders who entered the Pyrenees today for a series of tough mountain stages.
To read more about how Frenchman Laurent Brochard won today's Bastille Day stage race, click over to the official Website of Le Tour de France.
PRIME MEDICAL SERVICES (Nasdaq: PMSI) continued its rally, gaining $3/16 to close at $12. Trading volume approached an extraordinary 600,000 shares -- one of Prime's most active sessions ever. The company will report results for the June quarter on July 24, in the morning. As usual, The Motley Fool will be on the follow-up conference call and will provide a timely summary.
BORDERS GROUP (NYSE: BGP) rose $3/8 to continue its advance into record territory. U.S. retail sales stats for the month of June will be released tomorrow morning. Depending on how those numbers come out -- especially the ex-autos portion -- that could jiggle BGP around a bit. Whatever.
Another Borefolio stock that established a new high today is ORACLE (Nasdaq: ORCL). Shares of the second-largest software company in the world picked up $1 9/16 to close at a bid of $53 11/16.
Over the weekend, Oracle was mentioned in a Barron's interview with technology newsletter-writer Fred Hickey. The interview focused on the notorious "Year 2000" problem and stocks likely to profit from it.
Many investors don't think of Oracle as a "Y2K stock." But Oracle stands to benefit, on balance, from the problem, because companies that are making do with older, non-Y2K-compliant Oracle applications software must now upgrade to the newer stuff. Oracle has stated that they will no longer support the noncompliant applications.
Topics more likely to arise in everyday conversations about Oracle are the purported grudge that Oracle founder and CEO Larry Ellison bears toward MICROSOFT (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Bill Gates (not necessarily in that order) and -- very much related -- this Network Computer and "NC architecture" riff that Ellison appears to be mesmerized by.
Motley Fool writer Nico Detourn (TMFNico@aol.com) and AOL member Bob Sutton have been engaged in a fascinating conversation on these themes over in the Oracle message folder at The Motley Fool's AOL site.
Taking off on the alliance of Oracle and SUN MICROSYSTEMS (Nasdaq: SUNW) to offer a compelling alternative to the partnership of Microsoft and INTEL (Nasdaq: INTC), the conversation has been dubbed "Orasun vs. Wintel."
When I contacted him by e-mail, Sutton described himself as "a twenty-year institutional software salesman and sometimes technology consultant" who joined "a then-$15 million software company called Oracle" back in the late 1980s.
Sutton has since moved on from Oracle, but he continues to hold an investment in the company's stock and he's still active in the industry. "My work involves talking daily to top MIS executives of Fortune-50 companies who choose partners like Oracle and place million-dollar software orders," he wrote.
With that as a teaser, I hope you'll stop back here later this week for some excerpts from the "Orasun vs. Wintel" dialog.
Tomorrow holds a different treat for Borefolio mavens, though. It brings with it the debut of Mark Weaver, MD (MWEAV@aol.com) as a regular contributor to the weeknight Boring recaps.
Mark is well known to Fools on AOL as the former host of The Motley Fool's Healthcare Industry area. More recently he's taken on duties as regular writer of the Foolish Daily Double and Daily Trouble features.
With Mark on board, the Borefolio now has one of the most overeducated teams of managers in the business. What exactly that might be good for, I guess we'll all find out.
Fool Message
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Evening News
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Daily Double -- How can you find the next double?
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Stock Change Bid ATLS +1 3/8 23.00 BGP + 3/8 26.44 CSL - 3/8 35.38 CSCO +1 1/16 76.56 GNT + 7/8 37.13 ORCL +1 9/16 53.69 OXHP -2 1/2 78.75 PMSI + 3/16 12.00 TDW + 1/16 45.63
Day Month Year History
BORING +0.83% 3.48% 15.71% 33.15%
S&P: +0.19% 3.75% 23.98% 47.74%
NASDAQ: +1.41% 5.67% 18.04% 46.39%
Rec'd # Security In At Now Change
2/28/96 400 Borders Gr 11.26 26.44 134.87%
5/24/96 100 Oxford Hea 48.02 78.75 63.98%
6/26/96 100 Cisco Syst 53.90 76.56 42.05%
8/13/96 200 Carlisle C 26.32 35.38 34.38%
2/2/96 200 Green Tree 30.39 37.13 22.17%
3/8/96 400 Prime Medi 10.07 12.00 19.18%
11/21/96 100 Oracle Cor 48.65 53.69 10.35%
3/5/97 150 Atlas Air 23.06 23.00 -0.25%
12/23/96 100 Tidewater 46.52 45.63 -1.93%
Rec'd # Security In At Value Change
2/28/96 400 Borders Gr 4502.49 10575.00 $6072.51
5/24/96 100 Oxford Hea 4802.49 7875.00 $3072.51
6/26/96 100 Cisco Syst 5389.99 7656.25 $2266.26
8/13/96 200 Carlisle C 5264.99 7075.00 $1810.01
2/2/96 200 Green Tree 6077.49 7425.00 $1347.51
3/8/96 400 Prime Medi 4027.49 4800.00 $772.51
11/21/96 100 Oracle Cor 4864.99 5368.75 $503.76
3/5/97 150 Atlas Air 3458.74 3450.00 -$8.74
12/23/96 100 Tidewater 4652.49 4562.50 -$89.99
CASH $7788.54
TOTAL $66576.04