The Daily Workshop Report
by Robert Sheard (TMF Sheard)

LEXINGTON, KY. (June 17, 1997)  In the more than two years that I've worked for The Motley Fool, I've taken four short vacations. The first three established a pattern which is notoriously called the Bloody Sheard Effect.

The genesis of this name is in some dispute. Some claim it is derived from the exclamation, that Bloody Sheard is taking a vacation again (heard throughout the halls of Fooldom by those who have to cover for me when I leave). Others believe its derivation is slightly different: that Sheard is taking another Bloody Vacation.

But the real story is that it comes from the collective cries of readers: Sheard is taking another vacation -- I'm bloody likely to lose my shirt! In short, the last three times I've taken a vacation, the market has been hammered, losing more than 100 points at least once during the stretch I was gone.

Being what it is, such a correlation is as useful as the other useless market correlations: the Super Bowl indicator, astrological indicators, the mini-skirt indicator, and other such silliness. Last week, however, the Bloody Sheard Effect fell apart (unless you were getting cute and trying to short the Sheard Effect, in which case you were bloodied once again). Three of the four days I was gone, the Dow set new record highs, and the overall gain for the four days was 233 points.

Shake your totems, read your tea-leaves, interpret the squiggles in your oatmeal, whatever. My money is on the long-term belief that the market will be above 21,000 in a decade. (Don't get too excited; that's just about 11% a year.)

Monthly Growth Screens
(Jan. 3 to present)
35.92%  Relative Strength  
19.57%  S&P 500 Index  
16.94%  Low Price/Sales  
 5.49%  Investing for Growth  
 5.02%  YPEG Potential  
-0.51%  Unemotional Growth  
-6.26%  EPS Plus RS  
-17.11%  Formula 90  

Annual Value Screens
(Jan. 1 to present)
20.98%  Dogs of the Dow  
20.35%  Dow Jones Ind Avg  
13.48%  Beating the S&P  
11.69%  Unemotional Value  
11.69%  Beating the Dow  
10.05%  Dow Combo  
 5.17%  Foolish Four