Fool Portfolio Report
Wednesday, February 14, 1996
NOTE: DC/Virginia/Maryland readers: Join the Gardners this Thursday night (tomorrow night) at Border's Books on Lee Highway in Fairfax, VA, for a one-hour combination of presentation/gab session/booksigning from 7:30 to 8:30 PM. Questions? Call (703) 359-4983. We look forward to seeing you there!
(FOOL GLOBAL
WIRE)
by David Gardner (MotleyFool)
--(Alexandria, VA, Feb. 14)-- OK, it's Valentine's Day, so let's get that out of the way first. Happy Valentine's, everyone! Hugs and kisses from Fool HQ (OK, we'll stop... this could get messy). It's been a delightful year so far.
***WARNING: System has detected blatant plug. Transmission now occurring.****
In fact, get out and buy a few copies of our new book "The Motley Fool Investment Guide" (new from Simon & Schuster!) and share the gift of Foolishness with those dearest to you!
That can be your Valentine's gift. OUR Valentine's gift to YOU, on the other hand, now resides in our mainscreen listbox, where our staff has created a deee-lightful little collection entitled "VALENTINE'S DAY: Stocks To Fall In Love With." There you have more than a dozen of our staff's favorite investment ideas, with short writeups to get you started doing your own research. (Make sure you scroll down to find them all!) As always, these are NOT buy recommendations---nothing in The Motley Fool ever is. It's just a bunch of people who love investing and have done OK at it sharing with you the equity loves of their life. . . this year, anyway. So please check it out!
And if you're a new reader and don't really know how to locate the listing in our mainscreen listbox, please just send an e-mail to MF Fletch (one of Fool HQ's most eligible bachelors) and he'll send you back a note explaining how to find that collection.
OK, to the Fool Portfolio. Four stocks up, five stocks down, and we make money and beat the market today. Yippee. Ah yes, the joys of riding your big winners (America Online, Gap, and Sears---you can see their sweet numbers to the right) so that their moves outdo the losing moves of your dogs (KLA Instruments, down another $1 1/2 to $27 1/2).
What you end up with is a portfolio built on strong stocks that take you forward, despite the inevitable bad investments you'll make along the way.
Discerning readers will notice that America Online stock now makes up $34,850 of our $104,269.63 overall. . . or 33% of our whole Fool Portfolio. One stock, you say, is one-third of the whole shebang?! Wait, isn't this the company that the Wall Street Journal said three weeks ago was going to bet buried by the Internet? This IS the same company, isn't it, that the New York Times said was underrepresenting its subscriber acquisition costs and was such a darling of short sellers? And hold on, here, is it really true that more shares of AMER have been shorted than any other stock on the NASDAQ?
Yeah, it's that very one. And y'know, the only way it got to be 33% of our portfolio in the first place was because it rose 600% in 18 months. How or why did that ever happen, anyway? Geez, the Journal and the Times were saying those same things a month BEFORE we ever bought the stock. Funny how the world works.
Anyway, I don't mean to gloat TOO much. . . heck, I'm one of the same guys who thought Sonic Solutions would be the audio equivalent of Pixar (the company that created "The Toy Story")---and that's before PIXR ever existed! But it does teach us all, doesn't it, dear Fools, that if you invest based on what you read in the papers, you'll probably put up the same mediocre returns that are put up by the guys the papers are quoting.
(Smirk.)
Now, to close off that previous point, we let our winners run. . . that's part of our Foolish strategy. There's an old guy in my local investment club that scans our club portfolio every month, and if he sees ANY holding getting to be worth 10% or more of our overall assets, he automatically raises his hand and proposes a sell. So what's been happening, I gather (I'm a relative newcomer to the club), is that he's been dumping shares of the club's best stocks for years. That is NOT the way to make money on the stock market.
Applied Materials rose $5/8 today, following a strong earnings report yesterday. We have a special section created for the occasion, which you can find in our mainscreen listbox or behind the Applied Materials spot in our Hall of Portfolios listbox. Full details right there.
Final line: Sears, new high. . . gotta love it.
Love. . . that seems appropriate. Fool on!
AMER +2 1/8 AMAT + 5/8 CHV - 7/8 GE -1 1/8 GPS + 7/8 IOMG - 1/2 KLAC -1 1/2 MDRX - 7/8 S + 5/8
Today's Numbers
Day Month Year History FOOL +0.60% 5.33% 11.68% 108.54% S&P 500 -0.75% 3.08% 6.44% 43.01% NASDAQ +0.07% 2.66% 3.41% 51.07% Rec'd # Security In At Now Change 8/5/94 680 AmOnline 7.27 51.25 604.67% 5/17/95 1005 Iomega Cor 5.04 13.50 167.97% 8/5/94 165 Sears 28.93 46.63 61.19% 4/20/95 155 The Gap 32.55 50.25 54.38% 8/11/95 95 GenElec 57.91 78.63 35.76% 8/11/95 110 Chevron 49.00 55.38 13.01% 1/29/96 250 Medicis Ph 27.86 28.75 3.20% 8/24/95 100 AppldMatl 57.52 39.00 -32.20% 8/24/95 130 KLA Instrm 44.71 27.50 -38.49% Rec'd # Security Cost Value Change 8/5/94 680 AmOnline 4945.56 34850.00 $29904.44 8/24/95 100 AppldMatl 5752.49 3900.00 -$1852.49 5/17/95 1005 Iomega Cor 5063.13 13567.50 $8504.37 8/5/94 165 Sears 4772.65 7693.13 $2920.48 4/20/95 155 The Gap 5045.25 7788.75 $2743.50 8/11/95 95 GenElec 5501.87 7469.38 $1967.51 8/11/95 110 Chevron 5389.99 6091.25 $701.26 1/29/96 250 Medicis Ph 6964.99 7187.50 $222.51 8/24/95 130 KLA Instrm 5812.49 3575.00 -$2237.49 CASH $12147.13 TOTAL $104269.63