Boring Portfolio Report
Wednesday, March 13, 1996

(FOOL GLOBAL WIRE)
by Greg Markus (MF Boring)

(ANN ARBOR, Mar 13) -- The Borefolio box score indicates three stocks up, three down, and one unchanged today -- pretty boring. A strong showing by Texas Industries in advance of its Friday earnings report helped push the overall value of the portfolio up a few notches, however.

TXI gained $3 3/8 to close at $66 7/8 -- just below the all-time high it set recently. Other gainers were Potash Corp. and our newest acquisition, Prime Medical Services. Losers were Green Tree Financial, Borders Group, and Kulicke & Soffa.

GNT, which joined the S&P 500 today, continues to suffer along with most interest-rate sensitive stocks as investors worry about prospects for higher (or at least no-lower) rates in 1996. On the brighter side, though, Value Line raised both its EPS estimate and financial strength rating for GNT in the current issue of the VL weekly supplement.

KLIC continues to disappoint, no denying it. I can detect no appreciable change in the fundamental story, however: earnings estimates are unchanged, no new news on the wires, and the company has pretty much run out of things to say with regard to the share price. So, I simply hold, monitor the situation, and meanwhile look for good prospects in which to invest the balance of the port's cash reserves.

Pretty much the same story applies to our other chip-infrastructure holding, Lam Research. True, this week's First Call estimates show Lam's consensus EPS estimate for FY97 dropping a few pennies, from $5.53 to $5.49. It's worth noting, however, that three months ago, when LRCX was trading much higher than it is now, expected EPS for FY97 stood at $5.45 -- four cents *lower* than today! You figure it out; I can't.

By the way, Lam reported today that it had shipped its 500th Transformer Coupled Plasmax (TCPx) high density plasma etch system, to United Microelectronics Corp. in Taiwan, where it will be used in high-volume foundry and memory production programs using sub-half-micron process technologies. The press release notes that the TCP product line is the fastest ramping product series in Lam's history and accounts for a 46% share of the worldwide market for high density etchers, according to Dataquest. Now I'm only speaking for myself here, but I think it's a pretty good deal when you can buy this little Lam for less than 9-times trailing earnings.

In closing, I note with pleasure that PMSI rose a half-point on the bid side today, on continued good volume. Also, the folder-gods have answered our prayers, and PMSI followers can now share their views in our very own Prime Medical Service folder here in Fooldom.

Today's Moves

BGP   -   5/8
GNT   -   1/2
KLIC  -   1/4
LRCX  ---
POT   +   5/8
PMSI  +   1/2
TXI   +3  3/8