Text Only Instructions

Before perusing your Foolish 8 spreadsheet, 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.

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. Read David Gardner's Introduction for some Foolish words about the Fool 8 Spreadsheet.

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. What does this version offer?

The Current Foolish 8

Your monthly text file will list the stocks that currently meet the Foolish 8 criteria. It will include the following elements:

1. Ticker Symbol. This is also a hyperlink to The Motley Fool's quote page, and will give you the current price of that particular stock.
2. Name of the Company. This is a hyperlink to The Motley Fool's Message Boards that discuss the particular company in question. Please post your thoughts, or read what others have to say! To add your own thoughts, you will have to register with us. Don't worry, though, it's quick, easy, and free!
3. Entry Date. This is the date that the stock was added to the Foolish 8 list. This date is used to calculate the Entry Price and the percentage change in price.
4. Entry Price. The closing price on the day the stock entered the Foolish 8.
5. Current Price. The price, or quote, when it was last updated. At the end of the list, you will see a notation, "Current Prices as of�" followed by the date and time the prices were last updated.
6. Change. The percentage change in the stock's price from Entry Date to Current Price.
7. S&P Change. Also updated when prices are updated, this is provided for comparison purposes.
8. Sales. Annual revenue for the company. This number is in millions.
9. Sales Growth. Percentage of growth from four quarters ago to the last quarter.
10. Earnings Growth. The growth in Earnings Per Share (EPS) from four quarters ago to last quarter.
11. Profit Margin. The percentage of revenues that become earnings.
12. Relative Strength. A measure of how this stock has performed compared to others, on a 1 to 100 scale.
13. Insider Holdings. Percentage of shares held by "insiders," primarily managers and employees.
14. Cash Flow. "Positive" means cash is flowing into the company, "negative" means it's flowing away from a company -- and that a stock no longer qualifies as a Foolish 8. Among other things, this is to filter out companies that claim sales before their customers actually pay their invoices.
15. Daily Dollar Volume. The average amount of the stock that trades each day. This is a measure of liquidity, and is calculated by simply multiplying the share price by the average daily volume of shares traded.
16. 52-Week High and 52-Week Low. The highest and lowest prices the stock has traded at in the past year.
17. Company Web site. A link to the company's web site -- an excellent place to begin further research!

III. Downloading Instructions

To download your Foolish 8 sheet, 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:

1. Right-click on the file icon (or where it says "Part 1.2"), which should bring up a list of options.
2. Select the "Save Link As..." option. (Or any other Save option that may appear).
3. Save the file in any directory you choose.

IV. Using the Information

The monthly sheets will be sent to you in a text format, suitable for bringing into any word processing-type program, or most spreadsheet programs. For best viewing in a word processing program, use Courier font, set to 10 points. This should line up all the columns. However, considering the variety of possible applications (Word, WordPerfect, WordPad, Notepad) that this file can be opened within, you may need to further adjust window or font sizes to fully line up the columns.

Using a spreadsheet program, you'll want to open the file as either a space delimited import, or as a fixed field width import. Check the help files with your spreadsheet, looking under "Import" to figure out how this is done in your particular software. Or, if you're particularly daring, you might try opening the sheet directly from your spreadsheet. There's a very good chance that it'll work without having to do anything further.

V. Tech Help

If you have any questions or problems with your Foolish 8 Spreadsheet, please e-mail [email protected].

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