<FOOLISH WORKSHOP>

"Most Appearances Update"      

by David Forrest ([email protected])

Boca Raton, FL (March 26, 1999) -- Good afternoon, Fools. Today, I'm going to bring you up to speed on the Most Appearances portfolio and also make an announcement about some happenings in the Workshop here at HQ. Let me start with some HQ housekeeping. Last week, many of you were concerned that the rankings were not posted on Friday afternoon. This is because we are bringing more staff members up to speed on how to do the rankings. I've been doing them alone since September, and because I have other responsibilities at the Fool, we need to get other folks in the loop.

As of the past few weeks, Ann Coleman (TMF AnnC) has been getting up to speed. Last week, she had an unexpected problem, which caused the rankings to not be published on the website until Monday morning. We apologize for the inconvenience but hope you understand that no system is perfect. In addition to Ann getting up to speed, we'll also be hiring a data and research assistant who will be doing some extensive backtesting of many of the models we've been talking about here. This is good news for all and something I've been wanting for a while.

Most Appearances -- For those who didn't see it, I introduced a new model portfolio idea a few weeks back. You can get all of the details by clicking into these stories:

02/19/99, Most Appearances
02/26/99, Most Appearances - Part Deux

The basic premise is that you purchase a new stock each month by selecting the company that appears the most times in the Workshop screen rankings that we follow. Up until now, the portfolio has performed very well. Over the last 15 months, the Most Appearances port is up 49.90% versus the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, up just 16.16% in the same time frame.

It's important to note that when we compare these model returns to the S&P 500 that we're not just taking the S&P 500 price on January 1, 1998 and then using today's close and comparing them. Nope. Each step of the way, when a cash investment is made each month, we also put a phantom equivalent amount into the S&P Index and figure the returns that way. So we're dollar averaging the S&P in the same way that we are the portfolio. I've had some questions about that, and I just wanted to clear that up.

Next week, I'll report on the new purchase for this model and keep you in the loop on the rebalancing and new returns.

Take care,

Bogey


New Rankings | Workshop Returns