Drip
Portfolio Report
Friday, December 12, 1997
by Randy Befumo
([email protected])
ALEXANDRIA, VA (Dec. 12, 1997) -- Well, today we confess we are human. Jeff Fischer informed me yesterday that we missed the Intel reinvestment date last month. That means the purchase we hoped would go through on December 1st didn't happen on December 1st. This optional purchase of $100 will actually go through on January 1st -- or on the first trading day of January. Those of you who actually made the deadline, congrats. Those of you who didn't... well, you have until the 25th of December to make the January 1st buy, or to send more money again. Let's thank someone (that would be Jeff, the slacker) for being late to the mailbox last month. Intel traded at around $81 on December 1st, and is now down to $70, so we don't mind having missed the December investment date.
On Johnson & Johnson: we received our first account statement from the Transfer Agent last week while Jeff was off skiing. We have one share of Johnson & Johnson purchased at $62 1/8, and we're ready to send in additional investments at will. We also received a $3.88 refund check from Temper of the Times from the J&J purchase that we will deposit in the cash balance of our account. Jeff wanted to go to Subway and buy a Subway Club with the money, but a quick scuffle in the office settled that issue for good. To put more money into Johnson & Johnson this month, we unfortunately would have needed to send the check before the 10th, which is their investment date each month. Over the next few days Jeff and I will talk about whether or not to put more money into Johnson & Johnson for next month, or whether to send yet another $100 to the quickly descending Intel.
Over the past week I covered Heinz, Hershey Food and Interstate Bakeries as we search for a food investment. Like an idiot, I called Interstate Bakeries "International Bakeries" in the report, so all of you out there keeping score should chalk one in the negative column for Randy. Jeff tells me he will "get around" to fixing the old reports later today, but I think he is gonna keep it up for a while just to punish me because of the Subway thing.
On Thursday, I also recapped what the whole food odyssey is all about in an attempt to respond to a number of e-mails that have asked why we were doing things the way we were doing them. For those of you with any questions about this quest for a food investment, please check out that report. I outlined what a food company was, why I did not like dealing with international companies, and why we want to focus on companies that derive the majority of their revenues from food.
One of the companies that we have covered, Flowers Industries, reported today that it would take a majority stake in the currently 37%-owned Keebler and spin it off to shareholders. This could be a very interesting transaction and makes me quite a bit more interested in Keebler. In a future report, as more information comes out, I will go through the possibilities this spin-off presents. So you should send off to Flowers for its annual report and other SEC documentation 'cause this one looks like a good candidate to examine the spin-off dynamics. (As you can probably tell, I like spin-offs a lot. They often present a special situation where a little extra homework can gain you a lot of extra return. Although we got around to looking at Kansas City Southern (NYSE: KSU) late, I don't want to make the same mistake with Flowers.)
That's it for this week. Next week I will try to finish up my food companies and pick our first round draft choices to further examine the week after, while hopefully Jeff will have time to cover his remaining food companies, too.
Have a Foolish weekend.
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TODAY'S NUMBERS
Day Month Year History Drip (0.94%) (4.03%) (14.24%) (14.24%) S&P 500 (0.16%) (0.21%) 28.71% 0.22% Nasdaq (1.41%) (4.00%) 19.02% (3.59%) Last Rec'd Total # Security In At Current 11/03/97 4.835 INTC $81.623 $70.500 11/14/97 1.000 JNJ $62.125 $64.000 Last Rec'd Total # Security In At Value Change 11/03/97 4.835 INTC $394.69 $340.90 ($53.79) 11/14/97 1.000 JNJ $62.13 $64.00 $1.88 Base: $900.00 Cash: $389.75** Total: $794.65 GOAL: The portfolio began with $500 on July 28, 1997, adds $100 on the 15th of every month, and the goal is to grow the port to $150,000 by August of the year 2017. **Transactions in progress: 11/24/97: $100 sent to purchase more Intel. The Drip Portfolio has been divided into |
