<FOOLISH WORKSHOP>

Changes to the Workshop?

by David Forrest ([email protected])

White Plains, NY (November 20, 1998) -- Happy Friday, Fools. With the markets blazing back from their October lows, I hope that all of you have fully recovered in your portfolios. We at the Fool have a unique view on turbulent market activity, and David Gardner wrote a great Fool portfolio report the other night about it. Be sure to check it out when you have a minute.

Last week, I asked you to send me your suggestion on how to improve the Workshop. I received more than 100 e-mails on the subject, and I'll share some of the ideas with you here as a small foreshadowing of what's to come. There were several very strong themes to your suggestions.

Backtesting -- Clearly, people want backtesting. We're in the process of trying to get back data from Value Line to make backtesting easier. Without this, thorough backtesting basically requires making a trip to a library that has old data and manually doing it from microfiche. Yep, even in this wired world there are still some things we can't do... yet. Once we have the data, we'll do as extensive a backtest as we can.

Follow the New Screens -- There was a strong calling for us to start keeping track of the EG5 and the Spark 5. Two weeks ago I started including Spark 5 and have included the EG5 in this week's rankings. We'll see how they do. I want to emphasize for new folks who haven't gotten out to the message board yet that the Fool has not backtested Spark 5 or EG 5 yet. Caveat emptor.

Data -- A number of folks asked for historical stock price data. We're looking into this now, and hopefully we'll have this stuff in the coming months. I don't want to promise until I know we have it. You'll notice that it's not an easy thing to find on the net. AOL offers it, but the data has been suspect and it's impossible to download multiple symbols into a file.

Spreadsheet Format -- Another huge request was for us to offer the data in spreadsheet format. People want to download the database, the various models, etc. into a spreadsheet and manipulate the data themselves. I like this idea too.

Gut check and honest opinions needed -- As you can see, there are lots of great ideas, and I want to make all of them happen. However, there's a bit of a gut check that comes with all of this, so I need to ask your opinion again. Doing all of the stuff above requires time, energy, and money, and probably a new hire or two at Fool HQ to do the work. I'm not looking for anyone out there to feel bad for the Motley Fool, but if we start implementing some of these things, you'll most likely have to pay some sort of fee to get them. Is this something you're cool with? I'm willing to go either way, depending on what you tell me you want. Please drop a note and let me know how you feel about this.

Take care,
Bogey

Check out the latest file updates for the Workshop:
New Rankings | 1998 Returns | New Database