<THE FOOLISH FOUR>

Foolish Four Report
by Robert Sheard

LEXINGTON, KY. (April 7, 1998) -- One of the Dow stocks that's been dancing in and out of the High Yield group in 1998 made a decided leap out of the rankings this morning. (When a stock's price rises, its dividend yield falls.)

DuPont <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(NYSE: DD)") else Response.Write("(NYSE: DD)") end if %> rose nearly 6% today in a weak overall market on the announcement that it will restructure its chemical and specialties businesses into three groups to allow each group to perform more efficiently in the future. These groups represented more than half of the company's $45 billion in sales last year.

One group will consist of high-margin businesses, such as agricultural enterprise, biotechnology, and the DuPont Merck pharmaceutical ventures. DuPont plans to invest aggressively in this group for "rapid, sustainable growth."

The second group will be the so-called differentiated businesses -- advanced fibers and photomasks. The plan for this group is to invest "creatively" for growth. Could use a little more explanation, yes?

The third group will be the core businesses, such as fluoroproducts and nylon.

Unlike the move made by rival Monsanto <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(NYSE: MTC)") else Response.Write("(NYSE: MTC)") end if %> last year, where it spun-off the chemical business now trading as Solutia <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(NYSE: SOI)") else Response.Write("(NYSE: SOI)") end if %>, DuPont's management claims it's not looking to divest any businesses, only realign the divisions to make the operations more flexible and profitable. As a DuPont shareholder myself, I say, three cheers!

Fool on!

Current Dow Order | 1998 Dow Returns

[Robert Sheard is the author of the forthcoming book, The Unemotional Investor, due out from Simon & Schuster on May 12. To pre-order your copy, please visit Amazon.com, where it's available at a discounted price.]

TODAY'S NUMBERS
Stock  Change   Last 
 -------------------- 
 UK   ---       49.13 
 IP   -  13/16  48.19 
 MO   -1 11/16  37.56 
 EK   -   5/8   63.50 
 
 
                    Day   Month    Year 
         FOOL-4   -1.57%  -2.46%   4.17% 
         DJIA     -0.85%   1.78%  13.26% 
         S&P 500  -1.06%   0.71%  14.34% 
         NASDAQ   -1.66%  -2.01%  14.54% 
  
     Rec'd   #  Security     In At       Now    Change 
  
  12/31/97  291 Union Carb    42.94     49.13    14.41% 
  12/31/97  289 Int'l Pape    43.13     48.19    11.74% 
  12/31/97  206 Eastman Ko    60.56     63.50     4.85% 
  12/31/97  276 Philip Mor    45.25     37.56   -16.99% 
  
  
     Rec'd   #  Security     In At     Value    Change 
  
  12/31/97  291 Union Carb 12494.81  14295.38  $1800.56 
  12/31/97  289 Int'l Pape 12463.13  13926.19  $1463.06 
  12/31/97  206 Eastman Ko 12475.88  13081.00   $605.13 
  12/31/97  276 Philip Mor 12489.00  10367.25 -$2121.75 
  
  
                              CASH    $415.96 
                             TOTAL  $52085.77