The Daily Workshop Report
by Robert Sheard (TMF Sheard)

Year-to-Date Returns

  Growth Screens
 16.72%  Relative Strength  
 11.84%  YPEG Potential  
  9.96%  Low Price/Sales  
  6.13%  Investing for Growth  
  5.52%  Unemotional Growth  
  4.64%  S&P 500 Index  
  4.24%  EPS Plus RS  

     Value Screens
  6.76%  Dow Jones Ind Avg  
  5.88%  Dogs of the Dow  
  5.64%  Beating the S&P  
  3.86%  Dow Combo  
  3.49%  Unemotional Value  
  3.49%  Beating the Dow

It was a day of wild swings for the stocks in the Growth Screens today. On the downside, Coachmen Industries was the big loser, slumping roughly 13% after missing earnings estimates by a penny. Already down more than 7% this month, today's action throws a dart in the back of the current EPS Plus RS screen. Other big losers today were Nautica Enterprises, dropping another 5.5%, and Mosinee Paper, giving up about 2.5% after some nice recent gains.

The winners today, though, outnumbered the losers considerably and were typically drawn from the technology sector. McAfee Associates tried to balance out the losses for the EPS Plus RS screen today by surging 12%. Other strong stocks today were SCI Systems, up 7.5% on better-than-expected earnings, National Education, recovering 4.5% after a slow start for January, and Microsoft, which tacked on more than 4.5% in gains today.

For the Value Screen stocks, today was also a good day. Chrysler led the pack after posting good quarterly earnings. The strong numbers also pulled General Motors along to a fair gain, although GM's earnings numbers for the fourth quarter are yet to come.

Also strong today were AT&T, which has been in the cellar so far in 1997, Sara Lee, and Philip Morris, all three gaining more than 2% on the day.

For those of you playing the little game I developed for a fun way to experiment with these screens, the new entry form for February's Thoroughbred Stock Challenge is up on the website and ready for your submissions. I will accept entries (based on the date and time-stamp provided by the server, so leave yourself some room for slow connections) up until the opening bell rings on Monday, February 3.