Fool Portfolio Report
Tuesday, February 11, 1997
by Selena Maranjian (MF Selena)

ALEXANDRIA, VA. (Feb. 11, 1997) -- Greetings! Welcome to the Tour de Fool! We're happy you decided to spend your Tuesday evening with us, and we hope you enjoy exploring the nooks and crannies of Fooldom. I'm MF Selena, and I'll be your guide.

Please step into the Foolmobile to your left -- watch your step. Yes, the Foolmobile doors are rather tall. That's because we have to accomodate all sorts of jester caps.

As the Foolmobile starts preparing for take-off (it starts and stops quickly, as it is powered by Diet Coke and candy), let me introduce you to what you're about to see. You probably became aware of Fooldom by seeing our fearless leaders, brothers Tom and David Gardner, on TV, where they wear their funny hats and make financial professionals nervous. Perhaps you read about our outfit in Fortune, Time, or even People. We hope that you're happy to have found us, but we also worry that perhaps you aren't aware of all that we offer. We hate to think that you might be merely visiting our nightly FoolPort reports and not exploring the rest of Fooldom, which we've toiled long and hard to build.

(The Foolmobile starts making its way through Fooldom, as green and purple smoke puffs are kicked out of the tailpipe.)

On our way out to explore the rest of our fair land, you'll note that we're passing the little nutshell marquee just under the "Hall of Portfolios" button. Tonight it's telling us that our trusty FoolPort has shed 0.50% today, for a total decline of 10.11% for the year so far. How does that compare with the rest of the market? Well, for today, not too well. The Nasdaq dropped roughly half as much as we did, while the S&P 500 advanced 0.53% It's sure a good thing we're not short-term investors. Long-term, since our portfolio's inception in August of 1994, we're up 140%, more than besting the S&P's 72% and the Nasdaq's 85%. In ten or twenty years, though, we don't expect to have such stellar returns, but we do fully expect to beat the market handily.

The Hall of Portfolios features our other real-money portfolio, the Borefolio -- run by MF Boring, who's clobbering the Fool Port in the year-to-date. Bear in mind that this is just a good-natured, short-term ribbing. Fools know that any portfolio's performance should be measured by years (and lots of them), and not months.

Our first stop is the land of Fribbles -- bite-sized nuggets of Foolishness, teaching lessons small and large in a fun and easy-to-read fashion. Remember the tribbles in that old Star Trek episode? Where all the furry little things multiplied and took over? Well, our Fribble collection certainly does continue to grow, but we're keeping them under control by organizing them into useful categories. Today's Fribble features reader MBrady's further thoughts on 3Com's fall, with a host of historical military references thrown in. Nice job, MBrady! Very Foolish! (3Com actually rose today, up $1/4 to $37 1/2.)

Let's head over to the Fool's School next. Hey -- you're in luck! Look to your left! That's our croquet field (ok, it's really a foosball table) and yes, there are MF Raleigh and MF Nexus6 playing. What's that? You're surprised that they have time for such frivolity when there are portfolios to mind and stocks to scrutinize? Well, remember -- they're Fools. That means that they don't fill their portfolios with so many stocks that they spend all their time studying them. And they don't watch every little market uptick and downtick, trading day by day. It means that they respect the Dow Dividend Approach and the Foolish Four, which offer returns in the neighborhood of 20% per year in exchange for hardly any work at all. Fools also tend to find a few good companies, study them, invest in them, and then hold for the long term.

We're now approaching the Fool's School. This is where everyone new to Fooldom should spend some time. Of special interest are our "13 Steps to Investing Foolishly." These are kind of crucial, as they lay out the Foolish approach to investing in an organized and comprehensive manner. You're not fully Foolish until you've read and understand all 13 points. One of the Steps explains the incredible, amazing Dow Dividend Approach, and this stupendously simple strategy has an area all its own in the School, as well.

We want to make learning about investing as fun and painless as possible, and it was this desire that led to our brand new game, "Bust the Tipsters." Play it regularly, trying to crack each case with the help of Motley Fool as you fend off bad advice from the villainous likes of Dr. Mortimer Stocktout, the Smile and Dial twins, and Cold-Call Pete. Case number one made its debut today, and teaches us a little about REITs.

What's happening with AMERICA ONLINE? Well, a bunch of things. On a positive note, the company expects to surpass one million members outside the U.S. in 1997, with Japan growing into the second-largest cyber market. Perceived as less positive was yesterday's final agreement between AOL and attorneys general for 44 states. The online service agreed to offer refunds to anyone grumbling to AOL or to the 44 states within 120 days. In addition, the New York Times reported that America Online has been under-publicizing non-AOL-based access, easier-to-access telephone numbers in an attempt to focus usage on AOL-owned lines. It also noted that AOL's own network now accounts for some 80% of all traffic. But enough of this -- back to the tour!

Another excellent resource is Fool Search, accessible at the bottom of most AOL Fool screens and on our web main screen in the right-hand column. Interested in KLA INSTRUMENTS, after noting its $2 1/4 to $37 1/8 drop today? Search the Fool stockpile of news and research reports and see what Fools have written about the company in recent weeks. For today, though, there was no apparent news other than competitor APPLIED MATERIALS reporting its earnings tonight. Keeping things in perspective, though, we should note that KLA has KLAwed its way up from a 52-week low of $17 1/2 set only 5 months ago.

Yearning to really dig into stocks and industries? Not afraid to put your nose to the monitor as you pore through vast amounts of information? Then head on over to our Weekly Industry Reports  area, where you'll find our top-notch team of Industry Fools. These diligent MF staffers cover everything from Airlines to Zoroastrianism (okay, there's really very little on Zoroastrianism in there, but I was looking for a good "Z" word). Interested in food stocks? Check out MF Edible's Food area. Curious about Gaming? MF Parlay's your Fool. MF Wildcat heads up the Oil and Gas area, while MF Uptrend covers Healthcare. We've got many more industries than that, with more on the way, and in each area you'll find hard-working Fools sharing their specialized knowledge with you. (Web-footed Fools will be happy to hear that these industry areas will be debuting on our website very shortly.)

In the Hall of Portfolios area is our brand-spanking-new Foolish Workshop. Managed by chief tinkerer MF DowMan, this is the place where Fools from all over meet to discuss mechanical models for investing, experimenting and sharing results, all the while trying to figure out which models yield the most promising crops of companies for further research. These models serve as excellent screens, offering sets of stocks among which, after duly diligent homework, you may well find some gems.

Geez, you're probably getting winded by now. This is admittedly a long tour. Perhaps refreshments are in order. Here -- have a dish of "Fool." It's one of Egypt's favorite dishes (really!), and consists of cooked fava beans, which ideally are mashed with your fork, doused with lemon juice, topped with an egg and occasionally other goodies, and eaten with Arab bread. It's yummy and offers plenty of fiber, too!

Our penultimate stop today is the Fool News desk. This is where MF Templar churns out his daily columns and where MF Raleigh rounds up his goats and heroes each day. (Thought you heard some bleating? That's why.) Crucial to the team is MF Hoops, who edits sentences like "The fanatical drayage has been chased by archive prince cults across all produce lions" so that they read, "The financial damage has been caused by aggressive price cuts across all product lines." Our crack news team spends its days scouring the market for newsworthy stock moves and explaining them to you in the Lunchtime News and Evening News. The Fool News folks also bring you FoolWires, in-depth Rogue articles, weekend Fool's Gold magazines, and Earnings Central, where you'll find a massive storehouse of conference call reports.

What tour would be complete without a stop at the gift store? Here we are at FoolMart, where you can pick up some souvenirs for friends. How about some "My Dad visited Fooldom and all I got is this Fool cap" headgear? Looking for some good primers and books on investing? We've got a big bunch of them for you, and we're adding more all the time. Want to subscribe to some of our news reports? Looking for some useful ready-made spreadsheets to help you follow and study stocks? We've got 'em. How about a lovely sterling silver jester pin for mom? It's just in. (Only 42 more shopping days until April Fool's Day!)

Well, we've reached the end of the tour. If you're experiencing hyperventilation, overwhelmed by how wide and deep Fooldom is, just put this bag over your head and breathe deeply. Once you recover, since you're probably already online and you're probably not paying by the hour anymore, why not take a little time to poke around our forum a bit? And if you're already a seasoned Fool, why not bring some visiting relatives or friends by and give them a tour of Fooldom yourself?

Onward, Fellow Fools!

TODAY'S NUMBERS 

Stock  Change    Bid
--------------------
AOL   -  7/8   33.75
T     -  1/8   38.88
ATCT  +  5/16  6.81
CHV   +2 1/8   67.38
GM    +  1/8   56.63
IOM   -  1/8   16.38
KLAC  -2 1/2   36.88
LU    -  3/4   55.13
MMM   +  5/8   84.13
NCR   -  1/2   35.75
COMS  +  1/4   37.50


    
  

      
       Day   Month    Year  History
        FOOL     -0.50% -11.83% -10.11% 139.89%
        S&P:     +0.53%   0.43%   6.59%  72.24%
        NASDAQ:  -0.27%  -3.49%   3.15%  84.91%


    Rec'd   #  Security     In At       Now    Change

  5/17/95 2010 Iomega Cor     2.52     16.38   550.07%
   8/5/94  680 AmOnline       7.27     33.75   364.05%
  8/11/95  125 Chevron       50.28     67.38    33.99%
  8/12/96  110 Minn M&M      65.68     84.13    28.09%
  10/1/96   42 LucentTech    47.62     55.13    15.77%
  8/12/96  280 Gen'l Moto    51.97     56.63     8.95%
    1/2/97   8 NCR           33.63     35.75     6.32%
  8/12/96  130 AT&T          39.58     38.88    -1.78%
  8/24/95  130 KLA Instrm    44.71     36.88   -17.53%
  8/13/96  250 3Com Corp.    46.86     37.50   -19.97%
 10/22/96  600 ATC Comm.     22.94      6.81   -70.30%


    Rec'd   #  Security     In At     Value    Change

  5/17/95 2010 Iomega Cor  5063.13  32913.75 $27850.62
   8/5/94  680 AmOnline    4945.56  22950.00 $18004.44
  8/11/95  125 Chevron     6285.61   8421.88  $2136.27
  8/12/96  110 Minn M&M    7224.44   9253.75  $2029.31
  8/12/96  280 Gen'l Moto 14552.49  15855.00  $1302.51
  10/1/96   42 LucentTech  1999.88   2315.25   $315.37
    1/2/97   8 NCR          269.00    286.00    $17.00
  8/12/96  130 AT&T        5145.11   5053.75   -$91.36
  8/24/95  130 KLA Instrm  5812.49   4793.75 -$1018.74
  8/13/96  250 3Com Corp. 11714.99   9375.00 -$2339.99
 10/22/96  600 ATC Comm.  13761.50   4087.50 -$9674.00


                             CASH   $4639.01
                            TOTAL $119944.64