The Daily Dow
Thursday, September 4, 1997
by Robert Sheard

LEXINGTON, KY. (September 4, 1997) -- In honor of the Senior PGA Tour visiting Lexington for this week's Bank One Classic (alas, for the final time, as big-market money is more than the Bluegrass can afford, apparently), I'd like to revisit a topic I wrote about a year or two ago.

One of the misconceptions about investing (and golf) is that in order to be a success, you have to win the championship frequently. You've got to be the next George Soros or Warren Buffett, or Tiger Woods or Justin Leonard. But it's just not true.

In investing, our benchmark is the Dow or the S&P 500 Index. In golf, it's par. If you match these benchmarks, you've done well. Beat them and you're golden.

If you simply matched the market return over the last 26 years, your portfolio would have grown at an annual rate of better than 13%. A $10,000 investment in 1971 would be worth well over a quarter of a million dollars today. And with the Dow approaches, the returns have consistently beaten that standard. It's like a golfer who shoots under par almost every round. You'd slaughter the field.

And par's a very good score. Don't believe me? The website maintained by NBC and Golf Digest (golf.com) carries a feature called Mr. Par. It tracks the progress of a mythical golfer who shoots even par in every round of every tournament on tour, missing the cuts when par isn't good enough and scoring very well when par is tough to achieve.

So far in 1997, Mr. Par would be ranked in the top 50 for prize money, earning nearly $409,000 in the 32 events. Mr. Senior Par (the same mythical player on the Senior PGA Tour) has done even better. In the 26 events to date, our boring par shooter would have earned almost $600,000, eleventh best on the Sr. PGA Tour.

Maintaining realistic goals is part of long-term planning. Don't expect the Dow Dividend Approach to beat the indices every year (just as Mr. Par misses the cut once in a while). But with such solid long-term performance, your investing career will be the stuff that Wall Street would consider Hall of Fame caliber. Good enough for me!

(c) Copyright 1997, 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. ________________________________

Stock  Change   Last
--------------------
T    +   3/16  40.00
GM   +   5/16  65.50
CHV  -   5/16  79.88
MMM  +   3/16  92.56

            Day   Month    Year
        FOOL-4   +0.22%   4.28%  10.44%
        DJIA     -0.35%   3.21%  22.01%
        S&P 500  +0.32%   3.49%  25.66%
        NASDAQ   +0.39%   2.35%  25.83%

    Rec'd   #  Security     In At       Now    Change
   1/2/97  153 Chevron       65.00     79.88    22.88%
   1/2/97  179 Gen. Motor    55.75     65.50    17.49%
   1/2/97  120 3M            83.00     92.56    11.52%
   1/2/97  479 AT&T          41.75     40.00    -4.19%


    Rec'd   #  Security     In At     Value    Change
   1/2/97  153 Chevron     9945.00  12220.88  $2275.88
   1/2/97  179 Gen. Motor  9979.25  11724.50  $1745.25
   1/2/97  120 3M          9960.00  11107.50  $1147.50
   1/2/97  479 AT&T       19998.25  19160.00  -$838.25


                             CASH   $1009.44
                            TOTAL  $55222.32