Fool Portfolio Report
Wednesday, October 18, 1995
Despite a strong show Wednesday, Fools in the habit of checking their stocks at noon would have left the day at market close feeling a bit cold. When we ran our numbers at midday, we were looking at a FOOL up 3% for the day, and back over 70% in historic returns. But as the sunlight hours waned, NASDAQ technology succumbed to some profit-taking and so did our Fool stocks. However, a market-beating gain of greater than 1% is what we're left with, and it's nothing to sneeze at.
Iomega's movements epitomized the market's, Wednesday. IOMG opened $3/4 higher than it closed yesterday, had risen $2 at one point, but closed where it gapped up, up $3/4 to a bid of $20 7/8. The Motley Fool last night featured an outstanding auditorium event and late-night chat with our own Fool analysts and a special guest, Joe Besecker, an analyst from Emerald Research. Joe is one of the first analysts to take a serious look at the company, and his aggressive estimates have been the most accurate ones over the past couple of quarters. A complete transcript of that Iomega event may be accessed via the Hall of Portfolios (a button on our main screen), by double-clicking the Iomega entry in the listbox. Regular readers of the Iomega folder will also find it there.
I watched the whole thing from my perch in Row 8, and would like in particular to thank Joe Besecker, as well as our three analysts: MF Ben, MF Chiros, and MF DrJimbo. And TomGardner and MF DowMan kept the whole thing going snappily. The event really was very exciting from the point of view of its revolutionary character. There simply haven't been many online events featuring financial analysts working with an audience of investors to value a stock.
We received a note from long-time Fool M BUCKLEY reflecting on the proceedings, which I'd like to share: "Tonight I and about 200 other people 'watched ' a discussion of Iomega by the gurus onstage. After that ended, about 50 of us moved over to a chat room and participated in a question-and-answer period that was amazingly organized, entertaining, and informative. The whole shebang cost me a measly six dollars. Personally, I learned from everyone else's Q and A's. And I was able to get two of my own questions answered by the person who might be the leading analyst of Iomega. You can imagine what I would have thought if anyone had told little ole me six months ago that I could personally communicate with a 'heavyweight' in the industry about a stock I own. No wonder the newspapers, magazines, and all other media are concerned about online growth. This is truly an amazing medium with a HUGE future. The more I learn, the more I like this stock."
Speaking of which, America Online rose $1 1/2 today. Our crack staff is still working to find out the reason; no word yet on whether it all basically came down to M BUCKLEY's comment!
Ride Inc. just keeps doing it for Fooldom. The shares hit another all-time high today, up $1 to a bid of $23. RIDE announces its earnings tomorrow, and we're looking forward to seeing them. First Call shows consensus estimates for RIDE of 27 cents per share for its September quarter. The highest estimate is 29 cents. The estimates come from three brokers, all of them (I believe) regional boutiques like Dain Bosworth.
I hope everyone saw the company's announcement last week about its new licensing agreement with Marvel Comics. While it may not be the most important business move in the world, it does add to the Ride "mystique" AND (more importantly) to the range of jokes we can make. Essentially, Ride now has the rights to produce products branded with super heroes, having licensed the rights to Spider-Man (tm), the X-Men (tm), and a wide array of other Marvel characters. The line of products will include snowboards, snowboard boots, snowboard bindings, and related accessories.
In our RIDE folder, BYTEUP asked whether this meant we'd get to see our Spidey boards right there out on the slopes this year. But diligent as ever, the Ride company reps responded today in the negative, saying, "We design all of our product a year in advance. Going forward in '96 we will have the capabilities of a 60-day turnaround with our new factory. . . in other words if a particular board is super hot, or we sign a recent licensing agreement regarding graphics, we can ramp up production very quickly. Something we have not been able to do in the past, and we're very excited about the prospects going forward!"
On a downbeat, the Gap sunk $1 3/8 today for no discernibly newsworthy reason. GPS opened its first Navy store in Colorado, but you're telling us that should sink the stock the equivalent of $200 million, all because of a measly shack thrown up in Littleton? A Gap spokesman was quoted as saying, "The demographics in the neighborhoods are very high with the residents having high disposable incomes." Sharks. But we're glad we're invested in'em.
So anyway.
---David Gardner, October 18, 1995
AMER +1 1/2 AMAT - 1/2 CHV - 1/8 GE + 1/4 GPS -1 3/8 IOMG + 3/4 KLAC - 1/2 RIDE +1 S - 1/2 SNIC ---
Today's Numbers
Day Month Year History FOOL +1.05% -0.87% 50.82% 67.46% S&P 500 +0.12% 0.52% 27.91% 28.15% NASDAQ +0.94% 0.15% 38.99% 45.12% Rec'd # Security In At Now Change 8/5/94 340 AmOnline 14.55 65.75 352.02% 5/23/95 510 Ride Inc. 9.91 23.00 132.17% 5/17/95 335 Iomega Corp 15.11 20.88 38.12% 8/5/94 165 Sears 28.93 34.88 20.57% 4/20/95 155 The Gap 32.55 36.38 11.75% 8/11/95 95 GenElec 57.91 64.13 10.72% 8/11/95 110 Chevron 49.00 47.63 -2.81% 8/24/95 130 KLA Instrm 44.71 42.75 -4.39% 8/24/95 100 AppldMatl 57.52 50.00 -13.08% 12/23/94 340 SonicSol 14.48 10.00 -30.95% Rec'd # Security Cost Value Change 8/5/94 340 AmOnline 4945.56 22355.00 $17409.44 5/23/95 510 Ride Inc. 5052.44 11730.00 $6677.56 5/17/95 335 Iomega Corp 5063.13 6993.13 $1930.00 8/5/94 165 Sears 4772.65 5754.38 $981.73 4/20/95 155 The Gap 5045.25 5638.13 $592.88 8/11/95 95 GenElec 5501.87 6091.88 $590.01 8/11/95 110 Chevron 5389.99 5238.75 -$151.24 8/24/95130 KLA Instrm 5812.49 5557.50 -$254.99 8/24/95 100 AppldMatl 5752.49 5000.00 -$752.49 12/23/94 340 SonicSol 4924.18 3400.00 -$1524.18 CASH $5969.86 TOTAL $83728.61