Fool Portfolio Report
Monday, December 11, 1995
After six consecutive days of 1% or greater swings, the Fool Portfolio finally rolled over and took a nap Monday, dropping .10%. That gave us the lowly white ribbon, as the NASDAQ (down .09%) narrowly edged us out, and the S&P 500 turned a profit to win the day. In fact, today was the first day in December that the value of our portfolio did NOT fluctuate at least a percentage point either way.
Now, that's not to say that we didn't have some particularly strong (and weak) performances among our individual stocks today, because we did. For starters, Iomega had another horribly volatile day, closing down $2 1/4 more to a bid of $45 5/8. The stock traded as high as up $1, and as low as down $4. There was still no news today. The stock's now down 8 points from its high of last week.
Iomega's slump was enough to push us into the red almost single-handedly, although America Online stock did surrender a quarter. As we have $42,000 of our $97,000 invested in these two winners, when they drop together we're often hard-pressed to break even.
But it's not like our other stocks didn't try. And certainly one of our goals for 1996 is to do so well in several of our other stocks that the Fool Port balances out a bit more. (Not that we mind the concentration: America Online and Iomega remain our two favorite stocks.)
Today was a fine day for our two worst stocks, Applied Materials and KLA Instruments, which rose $1 7/8 and $1 1/2 respectively. On a day in which Intel rose just a quarter and Micron Technology closed unchanged, these were very strong moves for our semi stocks. Still off 17%-18%, both of these stocks are backed by great American companies, and our routine readers know we're keeping the faith candles burning.
How about Chevron? The oil giant rose $1 9/16 today to (DING! DING! DING!) a NEW HIGH. Gotta love it. CHV stock closed at $52 3/4, now up 8% for Fools everywhere. Trading between $43 and $51 for more than a year now, Chevron is suddenly more than a point above its 52-week high. Technically oriented investors might call this a very "bullish signal." I dunno. I don't keep up with that stuff. But suffice to say that the news we reported last week about the company's Tengiz oil field (cf. Friday's report), as well as peaking energy prices due to a freezing Europe and North America, are definitely driving oil stocks. (Exxon rose more than $2 today, and Texaco was up $3/4.) The Knight-Ridder Commodity Research Bureau index, which tracks the prices of 17 commodity futures, hit a 5 1/2-year high today, as well. No surprise, I don't think, that Chevron hit a 52-week high.
The Gap was our fourth stock to rise a point or more on Monday, though on no news. The stock is bounding back following a wave of downgrades two weeks ago.
GE rose $3/8, probably partly on a rumor that Microsoft may purchase up to a 49% stake in its NBC unit. That's right, N-B-C, the network. The rumor included the notion that the companies may partner to create a 24-hour news network. How original. . .we DEFINITELY need another one of those! Anyway, go GE.
I'd like to close by bringing to your attention one of our true Fool Highlights of December! It's our first-ever FoolBowl game, where we've created mini-FoolBall games (8 questions each) for ALL 19 college bowl games. It's good family holiday entertainment, and even better, each game's winner gets a prize corresponding to the bowl game itself. (For instance, if you win our Copper Bowl, you get $50 in PENNIES, and if you win our Gator Bowl you're the proud owner of a brand new alligator belt.) The grand prize winner---the person who scores the highest overall total for ALL 19 games---wins an additional copy of EVERY individual bowl prize, a.k.a EVERYTHING. Type keyword FOOLDOME to check out the rules and play the game, and please let your online friends know. All 19 bowls' worth of questions await you (though you can play'em a few at a time).
Tomorrow we'll find out whether Iomega can hold its three-bagger designation: current return is 202%.
---David Gardner, December 11, 1995
AMER - 1/4 AMAT +1 7/8 CHV +1 9/16 GE + 3/8 GPS +1 IOMG -2 1/4 KLAC +1 1/2 S + 1/2
Today's Numbers
Day Month Year History FOOL -0.10% 1.93% 75.58% 94.94% S&P 500 +0.33% 2.34% 34.89% 35.15% NASDAQ -0.09% 0.21% 41.16% 47.39% Rec'd # Security In At Now Change 8/5/94 680 AmOnline 7.27 40.50 456.86% 5/17/95 335 Iomega Corp 15.11 45.63 201.88% 4/20/95 155 The Gap 32.55 46.13 41.71% 8/5/94 165 Sears 28.93 39.38 36.13% 8/11/95 95 GenElec 57.91 70.63 21.95% 8/11/95 110 Chevron 49.00 52.75 7.65% 8/24/95 100 AppldMatl 57.52 47.63 -17.21% 8/24/95 130 KLA Instrm 44.71 36.50 -18.37% Rec'd # Security Cost Value Change 8/5/94 680 AmOnline 4945.56 27540.00 $22594.44 5/17/95 335 Iomega Corp 5063.13 15284.38 $10221.25 4/20/95 155 The Gap 5045.25 7149.38 $2104.13 8/5/94 165 Sears 4772.65 6496.88 $1724.23 8/11/95 95 GenElec 5501.87 6709.38 $1207.51 8/11/95 110 Chevron 5389.99 5802.50 $412.51 8/24/95 100 AppldMatl 5752.49 4762.50 -$989.99 8/24/95 130 KLA Instrm 5812.49 4745.00 -$1067.49 CASH $18981.96 TOTAL $97471.96
