Boring Portfolio Report
Tuesday, August 13, 1996

by Greg Markus (MF Boring)

PHOENIZ, Ariz., August 13 -- Once again, the market went into a tizzy over the spectre of rising inflation. This time it was a monthly Consumer Price Index reading of +0.3%, which was "higher than expected."

The fact that inflation through the preceding 12 months has summed to a thoroughly unremarkable 3.0%, or that other stats released today actually showed *declining* wages -- all of that got lost in the rush for the exits. Pat Lafferty (MF Merlin) provides his typically wizard analysis of today's macrostats in the "Economic News" section of "The Evening News" here in Fooldom. Highly, highly recommended reading.

By the end of Tuesday's session, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had fallen 58 points, and the Nasdaq had plunged 12 points -- or more than one percent in value. The S&P 500 index lost 0.84%, as did the Boring Portfolio.

I admit to feeling somewhat frustrated with what I would characterize as a thoroughly silly sell-off today. But there's no point in getting frustrated with Mr. Market, of course, because Mr. Market could not care less. So today was as fine a time as any to buy some stocks, which is exactly what I did.

Specifically, I purchased 100 shares of Carlisle Companies <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(NYSE: CSL)") else Response.Write("(NYSE: CSL)") end if %> for the Borefolio, at a price of $52 3/8. Carlisle ended the session at $51 7/8, so with the broker's commish factored in the Borefolio starts out $77.49 in the hole with CSL. I anticipate that the hole will be filled directly. By the way, by purchasing CSL today, the Borefolio is eligible to receive CSL's next quarterly dividend payment; the stock goes "ex-dividend" at the end of the week.

Moving quickly through other Borefolio holdings, Cisco slipped $1 1/2, despite what I'm told was a favorable story about the company in "USA Today." I was on a plane for most of the day, and I suspect I was about the only guy aloft that didn't have a copy of today's "McPaper."

Cisco is slated to report earnings on Thursday, after the market closes. Analysts are looking for $0.40 per share in earnings, which would constitute a neat 54% advance of the year-ago quarter.

By the way, I see that the Foolish Portfolio is adding Cisco's competitor, 3Com, to their holdings. I think that's just terrific. There's plenty of business to go around in the internetworking build-out; and the valuation on COMS looks inviting, indeed. Being Boring, though, I think I'll stick with the no-brainer selection, Cisco.

Borders Group will also be reporting earnings on Thursday afternoon -- expecting a nine-cent loss for the seasonally slow summer quarter. Not to worry about that, though: analysts are forecasting EPS of $1.24 for the current fiscal year, which would represent a 46% gain over last year. BGP lost $ 1/2 today.

Prime Medical Services also numbered among the Borefolio losers today. Last night, the company issued a press release stating they had decided to cancel entirely a planned secondary offering, an offering which has been postponed for some weeks now due to weak market conditions. I expected PMSI to rise today in response, but no dice. As PMSI's recent earnings report indicate, the stock is a gift at its current price.

Green Tree Financial shed $ 5/8, moving with the rise in bond yields in response to the CPI report. And the Spiders mirrored the loss in the S&P 500.

So much for today's decliners. How about some winners?

Well, Shaw Group was certainly one. The stock jumped $1 1/8 on good volume. Apparently the market liked yesterday's news that Shaw would be acquiring NAPTech, Inc. for a price well below NAPTech's $24 million in revenues last year and less than half of its current $39 million order backlog.

Oxford Health Plans recovered an eighth today, as did Texas Industries.

(c) Copyright 1996, The Motley Fool. All rights reserved. This material is for personal use only. Republication and redissemination, including posting to news groups, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of The Motley Fool.

Transmitted: 8/13/96