Investing For Growth
Investing For Growth
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FOOL GLOBAL WIRE LEXINGTON, KY. (November 22) -- As we get closer to Thanksgiving, my natural tendency is to start looking back at the year's results. Sometimes watching the market day-by-day as we do in order to write these kinds of reports, it's easy to lose the big picture. And by most accounts, 1996 has been a great year. After the huge gains of 1995, most Wisemen were predicting anything from a loss for 1996 to a small gain. Almost no one expected this year to surpass the long-term annual market average of 11% a year.
But here we are closing out November and the S&P 500 is up some 21%, blowing away most forecasts. Alas, the same can't be said for the original Investing for Growth. There's no escaping it; 1996 has been a disappointment for IFG, now up about 13% year-to-date. Over the last few years, in fact, it has lagged the market, even though its 17-year track record is still a hefty 25% or 26% a year.
Fortunately, though, IFG's offspring have had terrific years so far. The first development growing out of Investing for Growth was the Relative Strength variation, which boasts a 34% return for 1996.
But the real eye-opener is a newer set of screens, the Unemotional Growth screens. The high-flying 5-stock model -- which sports a ten-year annual growth rate of 40% -- is up a whopping 77% for 1996. (The 10-stock version is up 44%.)
Despite the original IFG's sad performance this year, then, it's been a good year for the IFG concept of screening for top-flight growth stocks that pound the market over the long haul. That's what we're really looking for -- long-term results. Fool on!
The new IFG rankings are now posted, with this week's only change consisting of a swap between spots 1 and 2. Green Tree wrests top honors from Nike, but the rest of last week's list remains intact. Look for all of the weekend updates sometime late tomorrow (or Monday if you're a web page visitor). See you Monday! |
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