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The Daily Dow LEXINGTON, Kentucky (11/27) -- Tomorrow, of course, is Thanksgiving, so I hope you'll indulge me and let me tell you some of the public things I'm thankful for. (The rest I'll save for my family.)
The most obvious thing I'm thankful for is the opportunity given me by The Motley Fool. A little over two years ago I was rapidly becoming a disillusioned academic, teaching writing and literature to a bunch of college students who would rather have been undergoing major surgery than having to write an essay or <gasp> read a book for pleasure.
When I ran across the new area on America Online known as The Motley Fool as I burned my introductory free 10 hours, no one could have foreseen the wild growth of the area, nor the fact that the Gardners and Erik Rydholm (MF Fletch, who controls many of the strings in this magical puppet show) would have been open enough to hire a novice investor whom they had never met in person to help out with the writing and editing duties as the area grew. And now here I am, in my ultra professional wardrobe (shorts and t-shirt), doing what I genuinely enjoy -- talking, teaching, writing, and learning. With apologies to the United States Army, it's not a job; it's an adventure!
And grow this area has. Which leads me to another group of people I'm thankful for -- you, the readers of The Motley Fool! By having the opportunity to talk with so many of you via e-mail, on the message boards, and in live chats and auditorium events, I feel like I've had the best stock market education of all, and at the same time, have established some very important friendships with people I have yet to meet face to face, some of whom live in distant countries. I can still remember what it was like for me two years ago when I started my intensive Foolish course of study. Without the openness of the other readers and the Fools, I might still be investing in mutual funds I wasn't even aware were lagging the market year after year. The exchange of ideas here between veteran investors and tyros is genuinely remarkable and exciting. And it's something special that, as far as I've seen, only the Fool has.
And finally, I'm thankful that I know where I'm going as an investor for the next several decades. I don't know precisely what the journey will look like as I round each corner, but I know what my ultimate destination should look like, and within a reasonable window of uncertainty, about how long it should take me to get there. That's something I certainly couldn't claim a few short years ago.
So, enjoy your Thanksgiving holiday and I'll see you again Friday. Fool on, indeed! Today's Dow Numbers Stock Change Bid ------------------- DD -1 1/4 93.63 CHV -1 1/2 66.63 MMM - 3/8 83.38 EK -1 1/2 80.63 IMN --- 30.75
Day Month Year History
FOOL-4 -1.46% 3.30% 30.68% 30.68%
DJIA -0.45% 7.79% 27.01% 27.01%
S&P 500 -0.13% 7.05% 22.58% 22.58%
NASDAQ +0.48% 5.39% 22.35% 22.35%
Rec'd # Security In At Now Change
1/2/96 142 DuPont 69.88 93.63 33.99%
1/2/96 149 3M 63.76 83.38 30.77%
1/2/96 380 Chevron 52.38 66.63 27.21%
1/2/96 148 E. Kodak 67.00 80.63 20.34%
7/16/96 14 Imation 26.16 30.75 17.56%
Rec'd # Security In At Value Change
1/2/96 380 Chevron 19902.50 25317.50 $5415.00
1/2/96 142 DuPont 9922.25 13294.75 $3372.50
1/2/96 149 3M 9500.09 12422.88 $2922.79
1/2/96 148 E. Kodak 9916.00 11932.50 $2016.50
7/16/96 14 Imation 366.21 430.50 $64.29
CASH $1942.85
TOTAL $65340.98
Transmitted: 11/26/96
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