The Daily Workshop Report
by Jim Stevens (MF Tools)

BURLINGTON, VT. (Mar. 14, 1997) -- Greetings all, MF Tools here. The Fearless Leader (Robert the Dowster Sheard) is off on a much needed rest from all this Folly and, if you can you believe it, he left this Fool to take the stage. Since MF DowMan leaves some rather large footwear to fill, let me first take this opportunity to lower your expectations for what to expect while he's gone. As Sen. Lloyd Bentsen said to Sen. Dan Quayle, "You ain't no Jack Kennedy!" -- kind of the same deal here folks, but I'll give it the old college try.

One thing some of us in the Workshop have noticed of late is the waning of "how to" questions about the growth stock investment models from investors who might be new to the area. Maybe this is because the current numbers for the models look so stinky, or it might be that ol' America Online access problem. My guess is that it's a little of both.

Since we haven't talked about it in awhile though, I thought I'd touch on the subject of how much money someone needs to start investing in the Workshop mechanical models. First, of course, come all the disclaimers about taking responsibility for all your own investment decisions and not investing money you couldn't stand to see frittered away in volatile market swings. You'll need to be ready for that feeling that all us pleasure boat owners are resigned to occasionally encounter -- it's been described to me as the same as "standing in an ice cold shower tearing up $100 bills."

Once you're ready for all that, pile up all the money you want to invest and see how much you've got. Now all you've got to do is estimate the number of stock trades you might do in the initial year under a plan you are considering. Multiply that by what you'll be paying for a trade and compare it to 2.5% of the amount you have in your pile. If it's less, watch out Warren Buffet, you're ready to go.

For example, let's say somebody wanted to do the UG5 approach with quarterly updates combined with the UV4 value stock investment approach. My personal estimate is that this would generate about 34 trades in the first year. If you were paying a very low $9 per trade, you'd be paying your broker $306 in commissions, so by the 2.5% guideline you would need a whopping $12,240 to get started.

The weekly Workshop Database and each model's Current Rankings will be updated this weekend as usual. I didn't give you any daily market meanderings concerning the models today because I'll be staring and scratching at quite enough numbers tomorrow doing the database update.

Monthly Growth Screens
     (Jan. 3 to present)
  9.49% Relative Strength
  6.03% S&P 500 Index
  3.67% Low Price/Sales
  2.10% YPEG Potential
 -6.05% Investing for Growth
-12.60% EPS Plus RS
-18.43% Formula 90
-19.25% Unemotional Growth

Annual Value Screens
     (Jan. 1 to present)
   7.56% Dow Jones Ind Avg
   7.42% Dogs of the Dow
   3.41% Beating the S&P
   2.34% Dow Combo
   2.25% Unemotional Value
   2.25% Beating the Dow
  -2.23% Foolish Four