The Daily Workshop Report
by Jim Stevens (MF Tools)

BURLINGTON, VT. (Mar. 18, 1997) -- Well Fools, it seems the fabled growth models have suffered once more from the high anxiety market we seem to be experiencing. On Monday, the Dow took a roller coaster ride that ended in the black. Some stocks in the current UG5 approach portfolio got hammered and barely recovered anything. Big interest rate jitters were the Wise words on why the wild Dow swing took place. Why did the Nasdaq slump and then not recover? Not enough buyers in the afternoon, or in Wise terminology: profit taking. Personally, I don't think anyone has a clue about what's going on. Some very unpredictable sentiments are at play here.

Since I'm getting this in early so I can take in a concert tonight, at 1:00 PM I did a quick check on how some of the growth stocks were faring today. No big movers at that time with the exception of DELL COMPUTER <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: DELL)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: DELL)") end if %>, which was down almost three points, presumably on a Prudential Securities downgrade that came out today.

A few months ago, when Robert Sheard's newly minted UG model was finishing up a better-than-80% return year, there were those who talked in the then IFG message folder about eschewing the Dow methods in one's investing plan altogether. Why settle for a mere 20% return? Now in the same purportedly unemotional voices the highly successful growth models are doubted and questioned by even the most ardent Fools, as well they should be. Oh what a difference a few months and the loss of some real money can make. You certainly don't get as much critical analysis during an 80%-plus return year though, so this period may actually prove to be advantageous to the future of the Workshop growth models. We can hope can't we? At least we can have a laugh or two along the way.

This week's Current Rankings for the Investing for Growth model and the Beating the Standard and Poor's model have not been updated and won't be until MF DowMan returns. Sorry 'bout that. For those on America Online, MF Cormend has posted the current BSP approach stocks in the Workshop and Beating the Dow folders.

Monthly Growth Screens
     (Jan. 3 to present)
   5.03%   Relative Strength   
   5.56%   S&P 500 Index   
   6.25%   Low Price/Sales   
   1.57%   YPEG Potential   
  -8.83%   Investing for Growth   
 -12.85%   EPS Plus RS   
 -19.57%   Formula 90   
 -22.93%   Unemotional Growth   

Annual Value Screens
     (Jan. 1 to present)
   6.95%   Dow Jones Ind Avg   
   6.19%   Dogs of the Dow   
   4.04%   Beating the S&P   
   1.22%   Dow Combo   
   1.34%   Unemotional Value   
   1.34%   Beating the Dow   
  -3.19%   Foolish Four