Drip Portfolio Report
Friday, March 6, 1998
by Jeff Fischer ([email protected])


ALEXANDRIA, VA (Mar. 6, 1998) -- This week we added our monthly $100 to the portfolio, and Monday we bought shares of Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) with $50 that was sent to the company in mid-February. We bought the fractional share at around $89. A few days later the stock fell $11 after the company announced that first quarter sales would be below expectations.

Hey, perhaps in the future Intel will make any such announcement a day before the thousands of DRP investors make their monthly purchase, rather than after. That way the company's most loyal investors will get a better price, plus there will actually be someone buying in the middle of the frantic selling. (There's probably something illegal about this paragraph.)

Intel suffered an $11 fall on Thursday, and the Drip Port wrote about the story and our investment in Intel that day. After all of the noise, Intel's stock is at the same price that it was at during the third week of January.

Onto the rest of the week...

On Monday we shared more letters from readers about Intel. The collection of letters, the first batch run two Thursdays ago and the second on Monday, are interesting reading. Many thoughts came from Fools in the industry. On Tuesday the Drip column explained why we want to buy more Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) over the coming months to even out our portfolio. On Wednesday we announced that our next industry, to be covered by Dale Wettlaufer (TMF Ralegh), will be financial and banking stocks. Dale will begin to write in mid-March. That column also gave an update on the Campbell Soup (NYSE: CPB) spin-off and on the imminent purchase of our first share of Campbell. We'll send our money soon.

Wednesday's column also addressed Intel's online voting and electronic annual report. We shared the website address where you can register for these things (please see Wednesday's column), but Intel claims that the website isn't in operation yet. (Though the company's snail mail said otherwise.) Either way, the site should be working soon. I'll return there next week to try again.

Finally, on Thursday, again, was the column on Intel.

Next week Vince Hanks (TMF Elwood) will write his debut column on DRPs and IRAs, and then we'll take a close look at Johnson & Johnson's 1997 results. We should also decide where the Drip Port is sending its $100 for the month of April by the end of next week, and finally we might very well send our money to buy Campbell, too. It'll be a busy week!

For more discussion, or if you have comments or questions, please visit the Drip message boards that are linked at the top right of this page. Have a great weekend. Remember to be Foolish!

--Jeff

FoolWatch -- It's what's going on at the Fool today.


TODAY'S NUMBERS

Stock Close Change INTC $78 1/8 +2 5/8 JNJ $74 +1 3/4
Day Month Year History Drip 2.04% (7.18%) 8.07% (7.97%) S&P 500 1.99% 0.61% 8.79% 10.97% Nasdaq 2.43% (0.96%) 11.66% 10.02% Last Rec'd Total # Security In At Current 02/02/98 8.066 INTC $79.929 $78.125 02/09/98 2.498 JNJ $64.902 $74.000 Last Rec'd Total# Security In At Value Change 02/02/98 8.066 INTC $644.72 $630.17 ($14.55) 02/09/98 2.498 JNJ $162.13 $184.85 $22.73 Base: $1300.00 Cash: $439.75** Total: $1254.77

The Drip Portfolio has been divided into 54.538 shares with an average purchase price of $23.837 per share.

The portfolio began with $500 on July 28, 1997, adds $100 on the 1st of every month, and the goal is to have $150,000 in stock by August of the year 2017.

**Transactions in progress:

2/21/98: Sending $50 to buy INTC.

2/21/98: Sending $50 to buy JNJ.