The Daily Workshop Report
by Robert Sheard (TMF Sheard)

LEXINGTON, KY. (January 29)

By now most of you who have read my nightly reports for any length of time know I'm a big golf fan. And on several occasions golf has served as a useful analogy to investing. Today you'll get another one, so if you're an avid non-golfer, insert your own favorite sport and adjust the comparisons.

With the opening of our Foolish Workshop, we're trying to put the emphasis on collaboration and education rather than on the elusive search for today's hot stock or magic bullet approach. But part of the education and experimentation stage is admitting that one just doesn't know and has to work out the details as one goes along. That seems especially true for things like whether to use stop losses, where to place them, whether to leave them or adjust them once in place.

Let's pick up your golf clubs, head to the most popular driving range in town and ask for help. Complain that you're just not getting the accuracy lately (or distance or feel or whatever malady inspires you) and you don't know what to do. Within minutes you'll have at least a dozen diametrically opposed solutions for your complaint. Move the ball back in your stance, move it forward; stand closer to it, stand farther away; open the club face, close it; chant bobbyjonesbobby- jonesbobbyjones on your backswing and benhoganbenhogan- benhogan on your follow through. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Come back tomorrow and get a whole different set of answers.

It's not much different with investing. There's no single answer to some problems that will work every time. One of those golf tips may well work perfectly for you and you start lacing the ball straight and long... today. Tomorrow it may not work at all. That's golf... and investing. Aside from a few basic principles for both golf and investing, the details that make each swing or investing style a custom fit have to be developed with lots of practice and tinkering to find what works for you.

So, other than holding the right end of the club, meeting the ball with the club-face square and accelerating through the shot, there's a huge range of variations in how to accomplish that. Don't believe it? Watch Greg Norman or Tiger Woods and compare their swings with those of Arnold Palmer or Jim Furyk (one of the quirkier swings on the PGA Tour).

The same is true for investing. Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch and George Soros don't go about it in precisely the same fashion, but their essential plans are the same. They select companies they think are strong and will grow. But how they go about it, how long they hold them, and how they determine which ones to sell and which to buy can vary dramatically. Yet they're all successful.

So, as in most things, the devil's in the details, whether it's that pause at the top of your backswing or your selling strategy when a stock begins to sag. And as with golf and life, the details involve issues no one can decide for you precisely. So tinker with the sound basic approaches to make them fit your style, your needs, your swing. Hit 'em long and straight. And the next time you yell Fore! Let's hope you mean four-bagger and not that you've just wiped out the gallery hiding under the trees.

For those of you playing the Thoroughbred Stock Challenge, the new entry form for February's game 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 3rd.

 Monthly Growth Screens 
     (Jan. 3 to present)

 22.57%  Relative Strength  
 19.83%  YPEG Potential  
  8.55%  Low Price/Sales  
  3.27%  S&P 500 Index  
  2.98%  Investing for Growth  
  0.12%  Unemotional Growth  
 -3.66%  EPS Plus RS

Annual Value Screens

     (Jan. 1 to present)

  4.54%  Dogs of the Dow  
  4.54%  Dow Jones Ind Avg  
  3.82%  Beating the S&P  
  1.84%  Dow Combo  
  1.57%  Unemotional Value  
  1.57%  Beating the Dow  
 -0.23%  Foolish Four