Fool Portfolio Report
Friday, April 19, 1996
(FOOL GLOBAL
WIRE)
by David Gardner
ALEXANDRIA, VA, April 19, 1996 -- An amusing day on the Street, worthy of minor celebration for Fools. And a darn nice way to close out the week. . . we can say that much for sure.
Friday saw the Fool Portfolio pitter-patter forward another couple percentage points against a mildly up market. For the week, this highly unWise undertaking sprouted 9.07%, vs. a fine five days for the NASDAQ (rising 3.43%) and a decent take for the S&P 500 (up 1.31%).
Just to be dull, we'll trot out the annual performance numbers so far. As of January 1st:
1996
==========
FOOL 44.47%
NASDAQ 8.23%
S&P 500 4.73%
Our regular online readers know that all these numbers are available in the window below (you can scroll down through a full accounting of our real money's performance, exhaustively stacked up against the market averages, every weekday).
OK. . . sigh.
This is one of those "sounding like a broken record days" that the writer in me somewhat dreads, but the investor in me absolutely loves. The unavoidable message is buy great companies, hold the stock, don't be afraid of making money, and oh by the way did I mention hold the stock? I think I did.
AND don't be afraid of making money. Some people tell you if you make a 100% gain on a stock, sell it out, or sell out half, or whatever. Hmmmmm. Isn't that a wee bit artificial, though? Shouldn't you be focusing on the stock's current valuation then, and the company's current finances? We think so. And if you still like them, and you're right, don't be surprised if in the course of due time you do make 200%, 300%, 500%, maybe even 1000% one day. One day. . . don't ever be in a hurry with your investing. But don't be afraid to make money. If you are, of course, you never really will.
Iomega rocked right out of the gates today, hitting $39 at one point and punching out at a new all-time high closer of $37 1/8. That was up $2 7/8 on the day, following the superlative earnings report that appeared after market close yesterday. If you read this in time, you should definitely stop by Fooldom tonight and join us for the latest in The Motley Fool Lecture Series (very snotty title) focused on Iomega. Let's call it "Iomega, Then and Now." Just come into keyword FOOL and look for the highlight button labeled IOMEGA on the left of our screen. . . you'll find us right there.
And for a pretty complete look at the numbers, just double-click and enter the Iomega section right up there in the listbox to your right. Once in, you'll find the date-stamped series of articles composed mainly by staff members who've followed this amazing stock very closely all the way up.
Another decent stock for us, America Online, had sort of a similar run today, also hitting a new all-time high but falling back a bit. (Someone in the AMER folder said the stock got Dorfed---again---at 2:30 PM today. I don't know whether anyone's really watching Dorfman anymore, but if you saw any high-pitched wheezing rants and would like to let us know what they were about, drop a note in the folder.) Up $3/4 on the day, AMER actually hit $61 1/8 at 11:36 this morning.
Gotta love that silly little time-stamp on AOL's Quotes & Portfolio section now. By the way, here's another quick online tip. Do you know about our Foolishly Answered Questions (FAQ) section? It's a great new addition to the area brought to you by MF Swagman. To find it on our main screen, just click that tiny little question mark in the bottom left and check this feature out! And send MF Swagman an e-mail with praise, constructive criticism, and (especially) new questions to be Foolishly answered!
The area was inspired by our desire to field all the repetitive questions asked on the message boards (particularly by newcomers). With a lot of experience knowing what sorts of questions new investors asked, we created the FAQ to help you help yourself understand what stuff like stock splits are, how to work with Quicken and spreadsheets, what Instinet after-market trading is, etc.
Back to the market. Medicis was unchanged today, following an excellent earnings report yesterday. Big brag coming up: We have now made exactly $35.01 in the stock since we invested in MDRX at the end of January. OK, now we didn't have time to go into the full analysis of those numbers in this space yesterday, due to the Iomega excitement. But we did do the analysis, and that is placed directly in the Medicis area (click the listbox entry above). AND, we now have a report on this morning's MDRX conference call courtesy of the talented MF Debit, so you gotta click in. Anyway, the stock looks cheap to this Fool.
In closing, I think it's important to state from time to time that I personally remain fairly shocked at the degree of outperformance that our portfolio enjoys over the market averages. I hope you won't think we're actually this good, because, dear Fool, no one is. We may never in our lives go up 170% in less than two years. . . and we have a fair number of years left to make the attempt. What we do say is that we set out to demonstrate that small investors who take control over their OWN money and who do NOT get to sit down with the CEOs of the companies in which they invest CAN beat the market on their own, if:
they follow a simple, disciplined approach
they maximize the incredible benefits of the online medium
they ignore all the OTHER media
they scoff at the advice of financial "gooroos"
and if, finally, they aspire to Folly, not Wisdom
That has been the mission, it is the mission, and it will continue to be the mission, and even if our online portfolio hadn't done anything else, it would at least by now have demonstrated the truth behind our undertaking, and the worthiness of the effort.
Thanks go out to our readers, as always, who do several times more work in The Motley Fool every day than our small staff could possibly manage. Fool on!
---David Gardner, April 19, 1996
TODAY'S OTHER FOOLISH THING: Those interested in our new upcoming FoolFax service, a weekly fax brought to you by the talented MF Bogey, can send queries via e-mail direct to FOOLFAX@aol.com. He'll send you the skinny on this exciting soon-to-be introduced product (which is particularly good for your currently unFoolish offline friends!).
Transmitted: 4/19/96 6:44 PM
Day Month Year HistoryFOOL +2.46% 13.67% 44.47% 169.76%
S&P 500 +0.23% -0.07% 4.73% 40.72%
NASDAQ +0.21% 3.39% 8.23% 58.11%
AMER + 3/4 ...AMAT + 1/8 ...CHV + 1/4 ...GE - 1/8 ...
GPS - 1/2 ...IOMG +2 7/8 ...KLAC + 3/8 ...MDRX ---...S - 1/2 ...
Rec'd # Security In At Now Change
8/5/94 680 AmOnline 7.27 59.50 718.11%
5/17/95 1005 Iomega Cor 5.04 37.13 636.91%
8/5/94 165 Sears 28.93 51.38 77.61%
4/20/95 310 The Gap 16.28 27.75 70.51%
8/11/95 95 GenElec 57.91 79.13 36.62%
8/11/95 110 Chevron 49.00 55.75 13.78%
1/29/96 250 Medicis Ph 27.86 28.00 0.51%
8/24/95 100 AppldMatl 57.52 37.25 -35.25%
8/24/95 130 KLA Instrm 44.71 27.00 -39.61%
Rec'd # Security Cost Value Change
8/5/94 680 AmOnline 4945.56 40460.00 $35514.44
5/17/95 1005 Iomega Cor 5063.13 37310.63 $32247.50
8/5/94 165 Sears 4772.65 8476.88 $3704.23
4/20/95 310 The Gap 5045.25 8602.50 $3557.25
8/11/95 95 GenElec 5501.87 7516.88 $2015.01
8/11/95 110 Chevron 5389.99 6132.50 $742.51
1/29/96 250 Medicis Ph 6964.99 7000.00 $35.01
8/24/95 100 AppldMatl 5752.49 3725.00 -$2027.49
8/24/95 130 KLA Instrm 5812.49 3510.00 -$2302.49
CASH $12147.13
TOTAL $134881.51