The Daily Workshop Report
by Robert Sheard (TMF Sheard)

LEXINGTON, KY. (Oct. 24, 1997)

Scroll to the bottom for year-to-date Growth and Value Screen results.

Today marks the beginning of my revised Workshop Databases. For the foreseeable future anyway, this is what I'll be providing on a weekly basis every Friday afternoon. (Today, the new database was posted around 1:00 p.m. Eastern on AOL and shortly thereafter on the website.)

The database contains eight columns that are explained in the Database Legend. They include the 100 stocks' ticker symbols, EPS and RS ranks from Investor's Business Daily, the current Price/Earnings Ratio, Price/Sales Ratio, EPS Growth Rate over the past year, Total Return over the past six months, and the Projected EPS Growth Rate.

In addition, each Friday's workshop column will include the rankings for the handful of model screens I'll be following officially beginning in 1998.

Unemotional Growth (screen the database by EPS rank from IBD, breaking ties using the RS rank from IBD). This model's holdings will be adjusted monthly.

                         EPS RS
Dell Computer  DELL      99  98
ENSCO Int'l  ESV         99  91
Global Marine  GLM       99  84
PeopleSoft  PSFT         99  68
AccuStaff Inc  ASI       99  44
McAfee Assoc.  MCAF      99  24
Quantum Corp.  QNTM      98  97
Varco Int'l  VRC         98  97
CKE Restaurants  CKR     98  92
CTS Corp.  CTS           98  92

Investing for Growth (Value Line High Growth Stocks with top Timeliness Rankings, ranked by Industry. These data are not part of the database.) This model's holdings will be adjusted quarterly.

Iomega Corp.  IOM
Dell Computer  DELL
Quantum Corp.  QNTM
Compaq Computer  CPQ
Sun Microsystems  SUNW
Dollar General Corp.  DG
Franklin Resources  BEN
Price (T. Rowe) Assoc.  TROW
Computer Associates  CA
Claire's Stores  CLE

Investing for Growth with Relative Strength (Value Line High Growth Stocks with top Timeliness Rankings, ranked by Total Return over the past six months.) This model's holdings will be adjusted quarterly.

                               Total Return
                               (6 months)
Dell Computer  DELL             149.76
Compaq Computer  CPQ            138.11
Quantum Corp.  QNTM             101.94
Franklin Resources  BEN          93.10
Price (T. Rowe) Assoc.  TROW     90.55
Computer Associates  CA          83.68
Robert Half Int'l  RHI           74.91
Iomega Corp.  IOM                73.90
State Street Corp.  STT          63.21
Helen of Troy Ltd.  HELE         53.19

Relative Strength (screen the database by RS rank from IBD, breaking ties using the EPS rank from IBD). This model's holdings will be adjusted annually.

                                 EPS RS
Dell Computer  DELL              99  98
Quantum Corp.  QNTM              98  97
Varco Int'l  VRC                 98  97
Nabors Inds.  NBR                78  97
Airborne Freight  ABF            96  96
Compaq Computer  CPQ             97  95
Michael Foods  MIKL              97  95
Guidant Corp.  GDT               77  95
Volt Info. Sciences  VOL         96  94
Kansas City South'n Ind.  KSU    91  94

Another version of the Relative Strength Screen, one that I prefer, is to screen the database by Total Return for the previous six months. This model's holdings would also be adjusted annually.

                          Total Return
                          (6 months)
Michael Foods  MIKL         154.22
Dell Computer  DELL         149.76
Nabors Inds.  NBR           139.74
Compaq Computer  CPQ        138.11
Varco Int'l  VRC            136.00
CKE Restaurants  CKR        135.20
Varlen Corp.  VRLN          130.93
Input/Output  IO            113.27
Dixie Group  DXYN           110.08
CompUSA Inc.  CPU           108.28

Keystone Portfolio (This screen doesn't come directly from our Workshop Database. The process for it is to begin with the 100 largest American stocks, then filter out all but the stocks with Value Line Timeliness rankings of either 1 or 2. The stocks passing that test are then sorted by 6-month Total Return.)

                            Total Return
                            (6 months)
Dell Computer  DELL          149.76
Compaq Computer  CPQ         138.11
Computer Associates  CA       83.68
Cisco Systems  CSCO           72.62
Merrill Lynch & Co.  MER      69.79
Schlumberger Ltd.  SLB        62.18
AirTouch Communic.  ATI       61.70
Schering-Plough  SGP          57.75
Pfizer  Inc.  PFE             57.14
Travelers Group  TRV          53.49

I'll begin tracking the returns for these screens "officially" in January, but I'll continue updating the rankings here each week. Enjoy the new Database format and screen rankings. Have a Foolish weekend.

Monthly Growth Screens
(Jan. 3 to present)
90.83%  Relative Strength  
36.01%  Investing for Growth  
33.18%  EPS Plus RS  
25.88%  S&P 500 Index  
22.64%  Formula 90  
18.69%  YPEG Potential  
16.73%  Low Price/Sales  
15.01%  Unemotional Growth  

Annual Value Screens
(Jan. 1 to present)
26.58%  Dow Combo  
25.62%  Unemotional Value  
25.62%  Beating the Dow  
23.71%  Foolish Four  
23.18%  Beating the S&P  
22.64%  Dogs of the Dow  
19.65%  Dow Jones Ind Avg