Fool Portfolio Report
Wednesday, March 20, 1996
(FOOL GLOBAL
WIRE)
Keith Pelczarski (MF Czar)
***NOTE: This portfolio report describes our AOL re-design.
Good evening, Fools, and welcome to the newly designed Motley Fool. It's especially interesting to note that this change has come on the same day that winter turns to spring. Just as the world is created anew on the vernal equinox, The Motley Fool has also been reborn, bringing a spiffy new look and easier navigation with it.
There really wasn't any news of great import on the Fool Portfolio holdings today, and the Gardner brothers are down in Atlanta petitioning to make booksigning an olympic event, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to play tour guide. There are probably quite a few Fools out there experiencing withdrawal from their favorite sections right now, and we've also added some great new content, so I'll try to give you some useful pointers.
Let's start with the main Motley Fool screen, the one you get from keyword: Fool. You'll see that we've rearranged the buttons, squished the listbox, and added a few graphic buttons to highlight different things. One that you should definitely read (if you haven't already) is the the smiling Fool button with the Foolish Facelift caption. There's a great rundown of the location of the old as it relates to the new. The same text can be found by clicking the "?" button in the bottom left-hand corner of the main Fool screen.
The "Investingly Foolishly" button in the top right-hand corner takes you to the revamped Fool's School. There you'll find a thirteen step list to Investing Foolishly, and two great new features -- the Dow area and the Investing for Growth area.
Each of these new areas will feature daily write-ups tracking the performance of model portfolios--the Foolish Four for the Dow area, and MF DowMan's IFG approach will be tracked in the Investing for Growth area. Not only will there be daily write-ups, but each of these areas will also include scads of historical data and background information about the approaches.
I figure you know what the Hall of Portfolios button does already, so I won't belabor that point. I will point out that we've added graphs to the write-ups on the individual FoolPort holdings. The inclusion of graphs does not, repeat, does not mean that the Fool is jumping on the technical analysis bandwagon. Those graphs will be updated weekly, and are intended to give a feeling for the historic performance of the various holdings.
The "Stock Research" button incorporates the Industry Research area, the Fool Specials, an area for the discussion of the Fool Ratio, and some pointers to great investment tools here on AOL.
The last button in the column is the Evening News, one of our best features, that brings you the news every night, long before the Wall Street Journal hits the desks of the Wise. The Evening News has finally found a direct link to the main Fool screen. For those of you that read the News religiously, you already know why I say that. For those of you who haven't read the Evening News, I can only ask, "Why not?"
Along the bottom of darn near all of the new screens is a row of buttons to help you get around. The "?" button will bring up the "Foolish Facelift" text, a Foolish "You-Are-Here" of sorts. The red "Fool!" button on the secondary screens will take you back to the main Fool screen, and we've been assured by AOL that those pesky "independent within independent" error messages are a thing of the past. Can't say that I'll miss them.
The "Index" button is, in fact, an index (guile has never been the mark of the Fool). The "Search" button brings you to a page full of links to other personal finance features on AOL, and will soon include a search function for our FoolWires.
The next button, "FoolMart", takes you to the wonderful world of Foolish merchandise. We've been told that FOOL ballcaps are all the rage on the catwalks of Milan this spring, and you can get yours in FoolMart.
"Games" is the place to go for Foolish fun and prizes. That's where we've put Today's Pitch and the NEW, improved Port Folly, as well as links to a number of games in our other Foolish Forums -- Follywood, Fool Dome, and Rogue. Check 'em out!
Next in line is the all-important "Messages" button, your gateway to interactive investment. We've rearranged the boards a bit, and will be highlighting three boards a day to let you know where the action is.
The last button, "Chat", takes you to the newly redesigned chat area, featuring rooms Fool One and Fool Two, both equally Foolish. Why not stop by tonight and discuss the new look with fellow Fools?
One final note, there are a lot more clickable spots to found found all over the forum -- graphics, graphs, and buttons. You can start the click-fest with the Fool in the upper left corner of the main Fool screen.
So go nutty, have fun, and tell us what you think. The suggestion box is in the listbox to the right of this text for just that purpose.
Oh, yeah, the Fool lost to the major averages today, coming in with a daily return of -1.04% versus the S&P 500's -0.26%. Nevertheless, we're still way ahead from last week's huge performance. The big loser in the Fool Port today was KLAC, down $1 1/4 to $24 3/8, on a squishy day for semiconductor related stocks in general.
For all the details, you can scroll through the numbers in the field right below this text. The Fool 'Folio is on a pace to quadruple the market this year (Fool +25.33%, S&P 500 +5.53%), but today wasn't really anything special, so the numbers took a backseat. Your usual FoolPort recap will return tomorrow night.
Folly forever,
AMER -3/4...AMAT -5/8...CHV -1 1/8...GPS +1/4...GE +1/8 ...IOMG -3/8...KLAC -1 1/4...MDRX -1/2...S +1/2... Day Month Year History FOOL -1.04% 9.51% 25.33% 134.03% S&P 500 -0.26% 1.49% 5.53% 41.79% NASDAQ -0.96% 0.16% 4.72% 52.99% Rec'd # Security In At Now Change 8/5/94 680 AmOnline 7.27 55.75 666.55% 5/17/95 1005 Iomega Cor 5.04 22.88 354.05% 8/5/94 165 Sears 28.93 51.50 78.05% 4/20/95 155 The Gap 32.55 57.13 75.50% 8/11/95 95 GenElec 57.91 77.38 33.60% 8/11/95 110 Chevron 49.00 55.88 14.03% 1/29/96 250 Medicis Ph 27.86 25.50 -8.47% 8/24/95 100 AppldMatl 57.52 35.75 -37.85% 8/24/95 130 KLA Instrm 44.71 24.38 -45.48% Rec'd # Security Cost Value Change 8/5/94 680 AmOnline 4945.56 37910.00 $32964.44 8/24/95 100 AppldMatl 5752.49 3575.00 -$2177.49 5/17/95 1005 Iomega Cor 5063.13 22989.38 $17926.25 4/20/95 155 The Gap 5045.25 8854.38 $3809.13 8/5/94 165 Sears 4772.65 8497.50 $3724.85 8/11/95 95 GenElec 5501.87 7350.63 $1848.76 8/11/95 110 Chevron 5389.99 6146.25 $756.26 1/29/96 250 Medicis Ph 6964.99 6375.00 -$589.99 8/24/95 130 KLA Instrm 5812.49 3168.75 -$2643.74 CASH $12147.13 TOTAL $117014.01
