The Daily Workshop Report
by Robert Sheard (TMF Sheard)

     Growth Screens
 15.00%  Relative Strength  
  7.78%  YPEG Potential  
  4.32%  Unemotional Growth  
  3.28%  EPS Plus RS  
  3.08%  Low Price/Sales  
  2.56%  S&P 500 Index  
  1.63%  Investing for Growth  

     Value Screens
  5.13%  Dogs of the Dow  
  4.32%  Dow Jones Ind Avg  
  3.27%  Dow Combo  
  3.19%  Beating the S&P  
  2.56%  Unemotional Value  
  2.56%  Beating the Dow  

Yesterday I mentioned using Aufhauser's $800 annual flat-rate fee as a baseline against which to measure your own commission costs. Unfortunately, I left out one requirement from yesterday's piece that you should be aware of. To have your trade qualify as an eligible trade under this plan, you must either buy or sell at least 200 shares.

While for many stocks, that's not a big concern if you've invested $40,000 or $50,000, for some of the higher-priced issues, 200 shares commands a major investment. For example, 3Com is currently trading around $72 a share. For 200 shares, you're committing to $14,400. If that's just one of five stocks, you're already into the $72,000 range for your portfolio, and that's not including the portions you might have devoted to other groups of stocks.

So when I said you shouldn't be paying more than $800, I simply misspoke. In some cases, you just won't be able to afford 200 shares. Fortunately, ineligible trades using this approach are only charged an $8 commission, so it's still not outrageous for those stocks you can't buy in 200-share lots.

So, while it's not quite as pure a benchmark as I intimated yesterday, it's still one to work with to see if you're set up with the right brokerage deal for you.

If you've got any questions you think I may be able to answer, visit my chat tonight at 9:00 (eastern). I try to keep the focus fairly basic so new readers and beginning investors have an outlet to ask questions about what may feel like intimidating topics. So come join me tonight for an hour and let's chat. Day-traders, penny-stock hypesters, and other general miscreants will be sent to the principal's office directly.

And if you're getting ready for February's Thoroughbred Stock Challenge, I'll open the entries starting January 21. On that date, the page with the master list of 99 stocks will be replaced with a page containing the master stock list and the entry form you'll need to fill out in order to submit your choices. The deadline for your entry will be the opening bell on the first trading day in February. Be aware, though, that sometimes e-mail is slowed up for whatever reasons. I will use the date and time stamp on your entry that's provided by the server. Rather than try to play e-mail traffic cop, I'll simply ignore any entries timed after the opening bell. I can't know when you send them, only when I receive them. So if you claim you sent it in early but I didn't get it on time, I have no way to verify that, so leave yourself some room for error.