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Excel 97/98 Instructions I.Introductory Notes There are several things you will need in order to fully realize the benefits of this product: First, we strongly recommend you read Chapter 15 of The Motley Fool Investment Guide. This is not simply to increase our sales -- hey, go to the library, if you want -- but rather because this chapter sets out in detail why the eight criteria used in this product are useful and effective. Secondly, you will need Excel 97 or Excel 98. If you do not have this software, you should be reading the for Excel 5.0 or the Text Only instructions, depending on which version of this product you have subscribed to. Finally, you will probably want to have access to either the internet or America Online. The Excel 97/98 spreadsheet is fully integrated with the web and its many resources, specifically those found on the Fool website. If you're still asking yourself, "What is all this 'Foolish 8' stuff?" and you haven't yet read Chapter 15 of the Investment Guide, never fear. The "Foolish 8" is one set of criteria that we at the Fool like to use to screen for potential small- and mid-cap growth stocks. The spreadsheet's opening screen includes a quick overview from David Gardner himself, and basic explanations about each of the eight measures. That way, you won't start off in the dark. Finally, The Motley Fool does not specifically recommend or advocate investing in any of these stocks. The Foolish 8 Spreadsheet product serves as a convenience for locating some higher-grade investment possibilities within the small cap universe. The Foolish 8 Spreadsheet should therefore serve as only the first step in your investment research! II. How to Use the Foolish 8 Spreadsheet There are three primary functions of our Foolish 8 Spreadsheet.
So, how can you do all this great stuff? It's easy! Keep in mind that some of these instructions are also included on the "Current Foolish 8" screen within the spreadsheet itself. A. The Front Page After saving the Foolish 8 file to your hard drive, open Excel. Next, use the File/Open command on Excel's grey menu bar to open the file. It will pop up a window that has a lot of chatter about macros. Click "Enable Macros." Next, the main screen (or "Front Page") with the familiar Fool jester will appear. This screen includes an introduction from David Gardner, a list and description of the Foolish 8 criteria, a button taking you to the current list of Foolish 8 stocks, and below that several links to areas on our site. The F8 Spreadsheet contains three worksheets: the "Front Page" (described above); the "Current Foolish 8," which lists the stocks that meet the Foolish 8 criteria; and the "Past Foolish 8," which lists stocks that once met the criteria but have subsequently been moved off the list for failing to do so. B. Navigation To move from one sheet to another, you may click on the buttons in the top left of the screen. Alternatively, you may look towards the bottom left of the screen. There, you should see three tabs, one representing each sheet. C. The Current Foolish 8 Screen This screen lists the stocks that currently meet the Foolish 8 criteria. It includes the following elements (descriptions of each element are also available by holding your cursor over the title of each column on the sheet):
D. The Past Foolish 8 Screen This worksheet lists stocks that once met all of the Foolish 8 criteria, but no longer do. When you add your Monthly Updates (described below), stocks that no longer qualify as part of the Current Foolish 8 worksheet will be automatically moved to the Past Foolish 8 worksheet. These stocks may still be worth considering, however, as stocks that don't fit one or two of the Foolish 8 criteria, may still be worth following. You can view all stocks that no longer fit the criteria in the Past Foolish 8 worksheet. E. Update Prices Button Keeping track of Foolish 8 stocks while you research them is very easy. By using the "Update Prices" function, you can automatically update current prices, the price change from the entry price, the Daily Dollar Volume of the stock, the change in the S&P 500, and the 52-week highs and lows. To use this function, simply:
You will be prompted to do many of these things. And, for easy reference, these instructions are also provided within the Current 8 worksheet. This function is not available for Past Foolish 8 stocks. F. View Quotes Want to view quotes for all your stocks at once, rather than clicking on each ticker symbol, one by one? Then click the "View Quotes" button and you'll jump to the Motley Fool's quote page, where you can view not only share prices, but also other financial data and relevant news for all the companies on the Current Foolish 8 Sheet. The Motley Fool's Quote Page: http://quote.fool.com/simple.asp?Symbols=&submit.x=29&submit.y=15 G. Fool 8 Update Button Your Foolish 8 Spreadsheet includes a subscription to monthly updates of new Foolish 8 stocks. They will come attached to e-mail, and here's all you'll need to do.
Notes: a) The Fool 8 Update function will update criteria for the stocks that were already on your Current 8 screen, when appropriate. Please keep in mind, however, that many of these numbers will change only once a quarter, so information may not change from a single update to the next. b) If you find you want to go back and double-check the Foolish 8 stocks as they were before you updated them, simply save your Foolish 8 Spreadsheet under a different filename. The Current 8 screen will be unchanged in the earlier version of the Spreadsheet. c) Great Bonus: Stock splits will be taken into account by the Fool 8 Update. The Entry Price and other numbers related to it will be changed. This is not true of the Update Prices function, which will simply show a price change without explanation. H. Sorting Stocks No, that was "Sorting stocks," not "shorting" them. :-) Another excellent function of the Spreadsheet is its sorting capabilities. If you want to see which stock has the biggest profit margin, or the greatest earnings growth, simply: 1) Select any cell in the table. 2) Go to the Data menu on the top menu bar, and select Sort. 3) Choose the field you want to sort by. You can choose multiple fields if you like. III. Downloading Instructions To download your Foolish 8 Spreadsheet, and the monthly updates, do the following: From AOL, simply press the "Download File" button, then note which directory the file is being saved in (it will probably be AOL's "Download" directory, but you can change this if you prefer). From the Internet, double-click the file icon that should be in the text message area, and save the file to your hard drive. If no file icon exists, you should check your e-mail software's instructions on downloading attachments or contact your e-mail service provider for more detailed instructions. Netscape Mail Users: If you use Netscape Mail, you may not see a file icon. Try these steps:
a) Right-click on the file icon (or where it says "Part 1.2"), which should bring up a list of options. IV. Tech Help If you have any questions or problems with your Foolish 8 Spreadsheet, please e-mail [email protected].
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