Fool Portfolio Report
Tuesday, July 30, 1996
(FOOL GLOBAL
WIRE)
by Keith Pelczarski
ALEXANDRIA, VA, July 30, 1996 -- You say it's your birthday? {duh-na-na-na-na-na} It's my birthday, too, yeah! Tom couldn't write the recap tonight, so he turned over the Fool Portfolio reins to me as a present. (Heh, heh.)
Before I get any sillier, let's get to the news.
The Fool Portfolio was up 1.52% today, handily besting the returns for the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite (+0.69% and +0.52%, respectively). The newswire doesn't seem to hold much news on the Fool's Nasdaq issues, so tonight's report will focus on the blue-chip behemoths -- the Dow stocks.
I know this sounds like a broken record to many of you -- anyone who's spent any time in the Fool has surely noticed that we love the Dow. It's Step Six of Thirteen Steps to Foolishness, Use the Dow Dividend Approach. There's also an area in the Fool's School devoted to The Dow Dividend Approach which includes a daily recap of the Foolish Four.
While scanning the newswire, I noticed a few stories on the Fool's Dow holdings. It seems that Chevron is selling four oilfields to the Oryx UK Company for an undisclosed sum. Seems that they're buying or selling oilfields just about every day. Is this good, bad or just plain lunacy?
To be honest, I don't have the foggiest idea -- the only oil I get near is olive, and I certainly don't have any great insight into the workings of a multi-billion-dollar, worldwide petroleum concern. The beauty of the Dow Dividend Approach is that I don't need to know anything about oil fields or OPEC to select Chevron. If they're one of the five cheapest of the ten highest yielding Dow stocks, I just buy 'em and forget 'em until 365 days have past.
At that point, the old calculator comes out of the desk, and another fifteen minutes of calculations are performed. If I'm not feeling that motivated, I could always just check out the Dow area in the Investing Foolishly Area where Robert Sheard (MF DowMan) updates the Dow Dividend standings daily.
Just one more bit of evidence to toss in here -- the Fool's three Dow stocks are up 26.78% since 8/11/95 when they were last rejiggered. This compares pretty darn favorably to the 12.61% return posted by the S&P 500. That doesn't include dividends for either, but the Dow stocks have a higher collective yield than the S&P anyway, so it'd only be ratcheting up some already impressive stats.
We've already touched on Chevron, so let's take a quick look at how the other Dow battlestars announced today. It seems that General Electric's NBC unit has been covering some big thing in Atlanta, something about sports. Apparently, some 22 million people tuned in every night last week to watch it -- more than 20% above figures promised to NBC's advertisers. Gotta love a $140 billion dollar company that's number one or two in every market in which it competes.
On a closing note, some friends of mine (whose names have been withheld to protect the innocent) bought me $25 worth of lottery tickets today for my 25th birthday. The tickets had great names which conjured up images of big bucks -- In$tant Ca$h, $25,000 Slots, $25,000 Derby, Poker, and $10,000 Cash Reward. It was a very nice gesture, and served as an excellent reminder of why I don't play the lottery.
Out of the twenty-five $1 tickets, five were winners, paying a total of $6 and two free tickets. If we assume that those two free tickets pay $1 each (which I doubt they will), that's a 68% loss. Granted, it's a gain for me, since I didn't pay for them, but you get the idea -- you can't lose if you don't play.
For those of you who'd like to buy me something more Foolish for my birthday, there's a big FoolMart Anniversary Sale planned for Monday. ;)
--- Keith Pelczarski, July 30, 1996
Day Month Year History
FOOL +1.52% -24.73% 20.99% 125.91%
S&P 500 +0.69% -5.28% 3.14% 38.58%
NASDAQ +0.52% -9.54% 1.88% 48.85%
Rec'd # Security In At Now Change
5/17/95 2010 Iomega Cor 2.52 16.13 540.14%
8/5/94 680 AmOnline 7.27 29.50 305.62%
4/20/95 310 The Gap 16.28 29.13 78.96%
1/29/96 250 Medicis Ph 27.86 45.75 64.21%
8/5/94 165 Sears 28.93 42.00 45.20%
8/11/95 95 GenElec 57.91 80.13 38.35%
8/11/95 110 Chevron 49.00 57.13 16.58%
8/24/95 130 KLA Instrm 44.71 18.75 -58.06%
Rec'd # Security Cost Value Change
5/17/95 2010 Iomega Cor 5063.13 32411.25 $27348.12
8/5/94 680 AmOnline 4945.56 20060.00 $15114.44
1/29/96 250 Medicis Ph 6964.99 11437.50 $4472.51
4/20/95 310 The Gap 5045.25 9028.75 $3983.50
8/5/94 165 Sears 4772.65 6930.00 $2157.35
8/11/95 95 GenElec 5501.87 7611.88 $2110.01
8/11/95 110 Chevron 5389.99 6283.75 $893.76
8/24/95 130 KLA Instrm 5812.49 2437.50 -$3374.99
CASH $16754.13
TOTAL $112954.76
Transmitted: 7/30/96
