Fool Portfolio Report
Friday, January 5, 1996
Over rocky shoals, the Fool Portfolio ran aground for a .99% loss today, as our technology stocks failed to repeat the NASDAQ's good example (it rose). The Fool Dow stocks continued the excellent example they've been setting, with Sears up $1 3/4 to a new high of $42 1/8, Chevron striking it rich with a rise of $1 1/8 to $55 3/8 (new high), and GE rising slightly to $1/8. Beyond those fair-wind beneficiaries, though, only KLA Instruments additionally enjoyed smooth sailing. KLAC rose $1/4 to $24 1/4. . . still 46% BELOW our August purchase. In all, it was a market-losing, Fool-sloop-taking-on-water kinda day.
Today, we're coming to you live from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. (Stopped by the booth yet? It's the AOL Greenhouse booth, #15802. . . stop by and ask for the Fools, we'll tawk.) And whoa, lookee there. . . who would just happen to be DIRECTLY next to us than the Iomega booth? We can't really claim to have hung out sipping sherry with CEO Kim Edwards yet, mainly because he's never said a word to us before and wouldn't know us from Adam. But it was a voyeuristic pleasure to go over and eye---nay, even FINGER---the new Jaz drive. For those readers not yet familiar with the product, it's a 1 gigabyte removable (portable) hard drive that is faster than most NON-portable drives. It comes either as an external or internal accessory, and will serve as anything from a backup system for your existing hard drive to a brand new "instantly upgradeable" hard drive (i.e. buy a new portable disk or two and you just bought "a new hard drive(s)"!). At this point, I can only speak for its cosmetic qualities, but about those I shall say that the Jaz looks just like the Zip drive, but it's black, not cobalt blue. That means it's compact, sleekly handsome, and solid in a weighty sort of way. Suffice to say, I want one.
But all their dang display boxes were empty!
Iomega did announce a new rechargeable battery pack for the Zip drive today, which will retail for under 50 bucks during the second quarter of this year. Not exactly a huge new product introduction, but it does augment the Zip's "portability."
The Gap has been outstanding, hasn't it? Off $5/8 today, but the company's stock has risen through a bad retail period, a Christmas in which no one seems to have shopped anywhere but Sears. Oops, AND The Gap, since Gap posted same-store sales gains yesterday of 6%, for the month of December. Tom's report from yesterday holds further details, for anyone who missed it. (In that report, Tom put his current target price for the Gap in the low $50's.)
Well, the first week of 1996 didn't treat us too badly, after all. We closed up 1.08%, vs. an S&P 500 gain of .13% and a NASDAQ drop of 1.77%. Big stocks have started out beating small stocks for 1996, but we don't really care either way. The Foolish approach mixes the big and the small, trying to iron out any discrepancies between the two. So far, it's working. Fool on!
---David Gardner, January 5, 1996
Today's Moves
AMER -1 5/8 AMAT - 3/4 CHV +1 1/8 GE + 1/8 GPS - 5/8 IOMG - 3/8 KLAC + 1/4 S +1 3/4
Today's Numbers
Day Month Year History FOOL -0.99% 1.08% 1.08% 88.74% S&P 500 -0.16% 0.13% 0.13% 34.54% NASDAQ +0.35% -1.77% -1.77% 43.50% Rec'd # Security In At Now Change 8/5/94 680 AmOnline 7.27 37.75 419.05% 5/17/95 335 Iomega Corp 15.11 46.63 208.49% 8/5/94 165 Sears 28.93 42.13 45.63% 4/20/95 155 The Gap 32.55 46.88 44.01% 8/11/95 95 GenElec 57.91 72.75 25.62% 8/11/95 110 Chevron 49.00 55.38 13.01% 8/24/95 100 AppldMatl 57.52 37.25 -35.25% 8/24/95 130 KLA Instrm 44.71 24.25 -45.76% Rec'd # Security Cost Value Change 8/5/94 680 AmOnline 4945.56 25670.00 $20724.44 5/17/95 335 Iomega Corp 5063.13 15619.38 $10556.25 4/20/95 155 The Gap 5045.25 7265.63 $2220.38 8/5/94 165 Sears 4772.65 6950.63 $2177.98 8/11/95 95 GenElec 5501.87 6911.25 $1409.38 8/11/95 110 Chevron 5389.99 6091.25 $701.26 8/24/95 100 AppldMatl 5752.49 3725.00 -$2027.49 8/24/95130 KLA Instrm 5812.49 3152.50 -$2659.99 CASH $18981.96 TOTAL $94367.59
