Drip
Portfolio Report
Friday, May 8, 1998
by Jeff Fischer (JeffF@fool.com)
Alexandria, VA (May 8, 1998) -- On Saturday in 10,000 cities across the country, mail carriers will be picking up canned food left by mailboxes to be delivered to the hungry. Drip Port holding Campbell Soup (NYSE: CPB) is a large part of this annual food drive, which last year raised 73 million pounds of food. To kick off this year's drive, Campbell itself is donating 10 million pounds of food.
This giant effort takes place in all 50 states. Campbell recently mailed 93 million postcards to alert citizens to the cause. If you received this postcard (with a population of 250 million, most American adults should have) you know that you're in an area where food will be picked up by mail carriers on Saturday. Simply leave canned, non-perishable food in a bag by your mailbox. If you can, leave Campbell food (to help support the company) and then go out and restock.
There's more on this great annual effort (which comes just as charitable organizations are running low on resources following the holiday season) in the Stamp Out Hunger! press release from Campbell.
In financial news, Campbell Soup was named Merrill Lynch's Focus One stock this past week, helping the shares add to last week's gain -- a gain that was initiated by another analyst's upgrade. Merrill Lynch cited Campbell's cost-cutting, market leadership, and divestiture of non-core businesses -- some of the many things that led the Drip Port to decide to buy Campbell in January. We'll send our first optional cash purchase to Campbell this month.
Elsewhere in the Drip Port, Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) continue to behave -- swaying back and forth like docked boats on a calm day. This makes dollar-cost-averaging a little easier (and gains us more shares each month) than if the stocks were soaring. Of course, over the years we want the stocks to rise, but we're still floating in the dock ourselves, warming up our engine, rolling out our sails -- hardly even begun on our long journey. We have no need to speed away from shore so soon -- we're happy to keep bulking up.
Over the past week Dale continued to teach about financial services companies en route to an eventual 19-year investment (I figure) in the industry. On Monday the column shared more variables and facts to consider when looking at a spreadsheet in this industry, and Dale began a separate spreadsheet guide page, with terms and definitions.
Tuesday the column shared the detailed numbers behind one of the contenders, Regions Financial (Nasdaq: RGBK). On Wednesday, Vince stepped in to revisit how we account for DRP investments -- it's not as simple as a normal portfolio. And finally, on Thursday Dale shared the detailed numbers behind State Street Corp. (NYSE: STT). It's great to run through the numbers with the spreadsheet guide at your side and actually begin to understand what you're seeing.
If you have questions or simply want to talk about Foolish investing, please visit the message boards linked in the top right of the page. Thanks for checking in this week and have a Foolish weekend.
-Jeff
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