13 Steps To Invest Foolishly

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How can you invest like a Fool? Do you
need to keep your eyes glued all day to
financial news networks as countless
well-dressed individuals pontificate on the The 13 Steps
direction the market will turn in the next 1. What is Foolishness
week, day, or hour? Do you need to take a 2. Settle Your Finances
"financial seminar" for a couple hundred
dollars? Do you need to buy magazines with 3. Setting Expectations
covers that scream "The Ten Mutual Funds 4. Index Funds
You'll Want to Make Love To!" 5. All About Drips
We're here to tell you that it doesn't take that 6. Open a Discount
much time, effort, or boredom to be a Brokerage Account
successful investor. Would you believe that 7. Dow Approach
it only takes thirteen steps? Although you 8. Read Financial Info
should feel free to stop wherever you're
9. Evaluating
comfortable on this journey to financial Businesses
nirvana, these are the thirteen things that
you need to know to become fully Foolish. 10. Understand Rule
Maker Investing
Far, far away from silly investments in
Vancouver-based penny stocks or volatile 11. Consider Rule
options (Yikes!), this simple, commonsense Breakers and Small
progression should help point you in the Caps
right direction no matter where you are in 12. Advanced Investing
your saving and investing life. Issues
First Step: What is Foolishness? >> 13. Get Fully Foolish
http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/13Steps.htm (1 of 2) [06-11-1999 7:48:03 PM]

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http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/13Steps.htm (2 of 2) [06-11-1999 7:48:03 PM]

Fool.com: The 13 Steps to Investing Foolishly -- Step One
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Step 1: What is Toolbox
Foolishness? ● Email this to a Friend

"The Wise would have you
believe that 'A Fool and his
money are soon parted.' But in a
world where three quarters of all
PROFESSIONAL money The 13 Steps
managers lose to the market
averages, year in and year out, 1. What is Foolishness
how Wise should one aspire to 2. Settle Your Finances
be?" -- The Motley Fool
Investment Guide 3. Setting Expectations
4. Index Funds
Let's start out with what you may be most
confused about right now. As a newcomer, 5. All About Drips
you might be wondering just what the heck 6. Open a Discount
all this "Fool" stuff is, and why you should Brokerage Account
spend any time here. You were looking for 7. Dow Approach
investment or personal finance information
8. Read Financial Info
(right?), and now you're suddenly staring a
court jester directly in the eye. 9. Evaluating
Businesses
Who are these guys? 10. Understand Rule
What is this? Maker Investing
11. Consider Rule
To make a long story short, The Motley Breakers and Small
Fool name comes directly from the Caps
beginning of Act II, scene vii of 12. Advanced Investing
Shakespeare's As You Like It. In the days Issues
when Shakespeare was writing about kings,
Fools were the happy fellows who were paid
to entertain the king and queen with
self-effacing humor that instructed as it
amused. Fools were, in fact, the only
members of their societies who could tell
http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/stepone.htm (1 of 7) [06-11-1999 7:49:02 PM]

the truth to the king or queen without having

their heads rather unpleasantly removed
from their shoulders. This would not seem
to everyone like an ideal source to name a
website. Indeed, Shakespearean scholars
hotly dispute what Internet financial
websites would have been called in
Shakespeare's time -- had they existed. Be
that as it may, it's what this place is called.
In Fooldom, you the reader are the King,
and it's our job to tell you the truth about
investing and show you how you can
manage your own money better than the
pros on Wall Street.
The Motley Fool was conceived of in
mid-1993, came onto America Online a year
later, and its full site was launched on the
World Wide Web in 1997. Its mission was,
has been, is, and will always be to educate,
to amuse, and to enrich. We're here to help
you help yourself with all aspects of
personal finance and investing. We don't
manage anyone's money but our own, we're
not investment advisers, and we're not
selling anything. (Except a couple of books
-- and please feel free to ignore the many
enticements
to buy
The person them
who most has and just
ruthlessly
your financial use the
site
best interests without
at heart is you. ever
purchasing
a blessed
thing from us.) Again, our interest is solely
in educating, amusing, and enriching. (Oh,
we do have an interest in winning awards
for producing the best financial website in
the whole dang world -- but that's pretty
much a pride thing -- there sure isn't any
prize money that comes with any of these
awards.)
Now, when you're plying your trade in the
investment world, you normally wouldn't
want to be caught dead being called a

"Fool," right? We think quite the opposite,

of course. We look around at the supposed
Wisdom in the world today, the
Conventional Wisdom, and wish to put an
end to it, to reform it. In fact we're on a
mission here -- a mission from Shakespeare.
So what is some of the conventional wisdom
so contrary to the Foolish point of view?
We'll preview just a few slivers of it now --
suffice it to say that the 12 steps that follow
contain a touch more, and the rest of this
website goes into Foolishness in much
greater detail. Following are a couple of the
most salient bits of conventional wisdom
we'd like to address quickly before you click
off to some other website.
Conventional wisdom #1
You should just let 'experts' invest your
money for you by putting your money in
managed mutual funds.
Foolish response
Yikes! Did you know that well over
three-quarters of all managed mutual funds
underperform the stock market's average?
In other words, most of the Wise
'professionals' out there are losing to the
market's average return in most years -- and
they are paying themselves very, very well
in the process. Mutual fund managers will
try to persuade you they have some special
Wisdom or crystal ball. Unfortunately, their
impressive-sounding jargon is hogwash
when compared to the actual performance of
the market averages. If you're ever going to
be invested in mutual funds, look only as far
as an index fund, which tracks the market's
returns at a very low cost. (For more
information, check out The Truth About
Mutual Funds.)
Financial gurus do a good job of predicting
the direction of the stock market.
Foolish response
Nope. No one has ever proven the ability to

predict the stock market's future consistently

and accurately. We are amazed and amused
by all the people who still try to do it, and
all the journalists who daily (or hourly!)
quote them on the matter. The Foolish
investment approach is in no way predicated
on trying to 'time' the market; if it were,
we'd be well below market averages with
our own portfolio performance, like all the
rest of the market timers. Buy and hold good
stocks, and don't sweat where anyone's
telling you the market's going.
Wall Street brokerage firms and
professionals are a great asset to our society,
and they're worthy of our trust.
Foolish response
Well, they spend hundreds of millions a
year on TV commercials insisting so, but...
ummmm... not even close. Here's our take
on the well-dressed Wise men and women
of Wall Street. First off, Wall Street simply
doesn't have it in its best interests to teach
you. So long as you're in the dark about
investing, you'll have to give your money
over to Wall Street to manage for you. That
way, Wall Street professionals can charge
you (hidden) fees to manage your money.
The entire Wall Street industry is built on
you not figuring out how to manage your
money. And that, on the other hand, is
exactly what your fellow Fools are here to
help you do -- for FREE.
Further, most brokers are well trained in the
subtle art of salesmanship and are paid
based on how often you trade, not how well
you do. (Click here for some of the
bloodcurdling details in "A Life in the Day
of a Stockbroker.") For many people,
full-price brokers are their source for new
investment ideas as well as their crutch for
help with portfolio management and
financial planning. And yet for some reason,
the way that history played out has brokers
getting paid not for how well you do, but for
how often you trade.

That has created a massive conflict of

interest, because the best way to invest is to
buy and hold, not buy and sell and sell and
buy and sell again. Those who trade
frequently with a full-price, errrr...
"full-service"... broker end up losing an
unconscionable amount of their money to
commissions and capital gains taxes. This
can really eat into your long-term returns,
and unfortunately your broker is on the
other end of the phone counting his earnings
when that happens. Given that Wall Street
brokers do not end up providing advice that
leads to even market-average performance
for their clients, the advice of Wall Street
brokers would actually be expensive if it
were given out for free. And it sure ain't
given for free.
OK. Don't get us started. We could go on
and on about this stuff, but with limited
space and time, we won't. The main points
are that the Wise have prevailed in the
money world for far too long. Now it's
finally time that some Fools showed up and
leveled the playing field. (Or obliterated the
playing field, as the Rule Breaker Portfolio
has been doing over the past five years. But
more on that later...)
The Wise have

prevailed in the
money world for far
too long.
By "Fools," of course, we don't just mean
ourselves -- we also mean the millions of
Foolish readers who come in here every
month looking to answer each other's
Foolish questions on our message boards.
The information you'll get here at the Fool
comes without strings attached -- it's FREE,
no one is looking to invest your money for
you. Rather, we're teaching you how to do it
on your own. All that we humbly ask is that
you use whatever you may learn here for the

benefit of good rather than evil, and that if

you chance across some other Fool's
question on one of our message boards that
you can help out with, that you give a
thought to doing so.
Always remember, Foolishness calls upon
us all to make our own investment decisions
and take responsibility for them. Our aim at
Fool HQ is to get you started investing on
your own and taking responsibility for your
decisions. Anyway, the only way you'll ever
derive any true satisfaction from life is if
you make your own decisions and enjoy --
and occasionally suffer -- the consequences
of having done so. We believe that when
you take control of your financial life,
you're taking control of your destiny, and
that you'll be rewarded by making the
decision to do so.
By the time you're done with our 13 Steps,
you'll be well on your way toward a lifetime
of successful do-it-yourself investing and
extreme Foolishness.
But before we get into all that investing
stuff, first a word about your credit card
sponsor...
Next Step: Settle Your Finances >>

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Fool.com: The 13 Steps to Investing Foolishly -- Step Two
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Step 2: Settle Your Toolbox
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"[T]he separation of credit card
interest rates and the federal
funds rate changed
dramatically in the 1980s. The 13 Steps
Lenders got Wise. They began
1. What is Foolishness
to realize that many Americans
didn't know the first thing 2. Settle Your Finances
about "interest rates" or that 3. Setting Expectations
their grade-school 4. Index Funds
mathematical training could
5. All About Drips
actually be helpful in the
money world. Lenders' market 6. Open a Discount
research produced one Brokerage Account
overriding revelation: These 7. Dow Approach
people haven't a damned clue 8. Read Financial Info
about their money." -- You
9. Evaluating
Have More Than You Think Businesses
You have a few bucks set aside, you've just 10. Understand Rule
canceled your subscription to WiseMoney, Maker Investing
you've stopped watching the "Cable News 11. Consider Rule
Wisdom Channel," and you're thinking of Breakers and Small
starting to get a little bit Foolish with your Caps
dough. Maybe you've registered (for
12. Advanced Investing
FREE!) at The Motley Fool website, and Issues
you've been coming back regularly to some
of our Foolish message boards. In fact,
you've even peeked ahead a few steps to
read about choosing a broker to make your
first purchase of stock...
http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/steptwo.htm (1 of 6) [06-11-1999 7:49:26 PM]

Hey! Whoa there!

Not so fast, buddy -- what's your rush? We
know you're on the information
superhighway and all, but believe us, when
it comes to investing money you've worked
hard to earn, you want to obey all the speed
limits. Your personal finances need to be in
squeaky clean order before you ever think of
placing that exciting first stock trade. As
you'll find Fools imploring again and again
all over this site, do not ever rush. This
Second Step is here to tell you to Settle your
personal finances.
Erase Credit Card Debt

First stop... how thick is your billfold these
days? Is it full of cash or credit cards? One
of the critical keys to investing is only to use
money that is free of other obligation. Thus,
if you are carrying a revolving balance on
your credit cards,
it ain't
free!
Fools only (Neither
invest money are you,
unfortunately.)
that is free of Here's
why:
other Many
obligation. credit
cards
have an
annual interest rate of 16%-21%.
So let's say you have $5000 to invest, but
you also have $5000 in credit card debt,
with an average annual interest rate of 18%.
You're going to have to get an 18% return
after taxes (or about 24% before taxes) just
to break even on that $5000 that you didn't
pay off your credit card with. The chances
of realizing 24% gains, dear Fool, are very,
very slim.
Credit card debt remains probably the single
best answer we know to the question, "Why
can't I ever seem to get ahead?" As of this
writing, there are more than a billion credit
cards in circulation in the United States...

that's almost four cards for every American

man, woman, and child. And nearly 70% of
all credit card holders in the U.S. today
carry a revolving card balance each month
(i.e. they are paying the minimum amount
due). Yikes! Most unFoolish, dear reader,
especially when you consider that by
making minimum payments (2% of the
balance, or $10, whichever is greater) on
just a $1000 balance with an annual interest
rate of 18%, it's going to take you a little
over 19 years to pay off, en route to paying
close to $1900 in interest on that $1000! It's
enough to want to get into the credit card
issuing or lending business, isn't it?
As you now chart out your path to becoming
a more Foolish investor, we simply will not
let you pass on to Step Three until you stop
letting the credit card companies feed on
you. Click here for all the details on how
pay down your debt or discuss your credit
card questions with other Fools on the
boards.
A Plan for Regular Saving

Next stop... how well are you regularly
paying yourself? In other words, are you
routinely setting aside an adequate
established percentage of your paycheck
every payday? Or do you only set aside
money when there is something left over?
Or worse, are you finding there is nothing
left to pay yourself with?
If you answered yes to either of the last two
questions, you're simply not ready to Pass
Go yet. It's time to examine why you aren't
paying -- or can't pay -- yourself. A Fool
does not go investing with her lunch money,
or next month's rent,
or with money that should go toward paying
off a credit card. We invest money that we
have worked for (or heck, received as a gift
-- that counts, too) and have Foolishly
saved. As we stated above, money that is
free of other obligation.
Fools try to save around 10% of our annual

Your personal
finances need to be
in squeaky clean
order before you
ever think of
placing that
exciting first stock
trade.
incomes. For some, it'll be closer to 5%.
Others might manage to put away 15%...
y'know, the ones who are hooping it up in
the National Basketball Association and that
sort. Anyway, the important thing is to
establish a regular "rhythm" of savings and
stick to it, even if that means living below
your means. You should also have around
three to six months worth of living expenses
in an account that is liquid (like a money
market account) for those rainy-day
emergencies.
Now, if you already are routinely saving,
are you exploiting all the possibilities you
have to make that money grow tax-deferred
-- i.e. through an IRA, or SEP, or Keogh, or
401(k) or 403(b) plan? Since monies in
retirement plans like these are not
taxed until you begin withdrawing
them, they can grow exponentially,
compared to those taxed in a regular
investment account. Further, a number of
employers now offer to match your 401(k)
plan savings with additional monies kicked
in to benefit you (read: Free Money!). Make
certain you are plowing as much of your
savings as possible into these highly Foolish
vehicles. Remember: Pay yourself first, and
you'll thank yourself later.
Learn More About the Rest of

Your Personal Finances

In Fooldom, we can't say what should be of

value to you, and thus we can't ultimately
determine how much you should end up
with that is free of other obligation. But as
Fools, we are constantly working to help
you get the most bang for your buck. So
before you jump headfirst into that dramatic
first investment, you should at least give
some additional thought to other financial
aspects of your life, such as any investing
for your kids future educational costs,
insurance, housing, future employment,
your bank, and your wheels.
We could go on and on. We often do in fact.

Most of the subjects just mentioned have
several shelves of books devoted to them.
Fortunately, you can come directly over to
the various "Managing Your Finances"
message boards and correspond directly
with thousands of other readers who are
there to share their experiences and answer
one another's questions.
Next Step: Setting Expectations >>

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Fool.com: The 13 Steps to Investing Foolishly -- Step Three
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Step 3: Set Toolbox
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Your Results
"Fools don't wile away many
hours wondering whether Wall
Street is right when it tells us The 13 Steps
that we ought have our money 1. What is Foolishness
broadly diversified in mutual 2. Settle Your Finances
funds, bonds, gold, and T-bills. 3. Setting Expectations
Fools already know that all of
4. Index Funds
these have underperformed the
S&P 500 year after year after 5. All About Drips
year. Sixty years of history is 6. Open a Discount
pretty damning evidence, and Brokerage Account
the last 20 years have 7. Dow Approach
convinced us that mutual funds
are an investment opportunity
that isn't one." -- The Motley 9. Evaluating
Businesses
Fool Investment Guide
10. Understand Rule
Most people in the U.S. know what place Maker Investing
their local sports teams are in. They know 11. Consider Rule
what film won the last Academy Award. Breakers and Small
They know what Teletubbies, Beanie Caps
Babies, and Furbies are, for goodness sake, 12. Advanced Investing
and perhaps they even are aware of Issues
controversies surrounding such toys. We
live in a society that pays a lot of attention
to some pretty weird stuff, but one thing we
don't seem to pay much attention to is how
our investments are doing compared to the
market's averages. Why is that?
http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/stepthree.htm (1 of 5) [06-11-1999 7:49:51 PM]

Very simply, because nobody ever taught us

how and because no one who is selling
investment advice has had it in their best
interest to show us how to account for our
investment performance. If you think most
money managers and mutual fund managers
and brokers want you to know how your
investments are doing in
relationship to the market,
we've got a "limited
edition" Tinky Winky
doll we'd like to sell you for, oh, a couple of
thousand bucks. Professional investors just
don't want you to pay much attention to how
they're doing. It gives them a lot of room for
error. We've got our own favorite Foolish
story about what happens when Fools put
their "Eyes on the Wise" and ask
professionals to account for their results
against the market, but let's not dwell on
past guerilla assaults on the Wise -- there's
too much ground to cover here.
Coming down the digital road now, here are
over a million Fools proposing that unless
you're going to take the time to measure
your results, you shouldn't put investment
dollars into anything but an index fund -- a
mutual fund that tracks the market, step for
step.
Don't
buy
Any money stocks,
that you have bonds,
gold
to invest for bullion
(yikes!),
five years or or
longer should managed
mutual
not funds. If
you can
underperform afford to
put
the market money
over that away for
five
five-year years,
but don't
period.
have the
time to
keep tabs on how you're doing, buy an index
fund and leave it at that.
We suspect, though, that most of you have
more than an hour a year to devote to this
and wouldn't mind aiming to be better
than average if it were possible. You should
know that accounting for your savings, just
like a business would, doesn't take much,
nor is it beyond your abilities to beat the
stock market over time. One of today's great
travesties is that most people don't consider
their personal finances a business and don't
think the market can be deciphered, let
alone beaten.
That's because not enough people have
gotten Foolish yet.
Let's start with some basic expectations...
and again, this is for the money that you can
afford to put away for five years (ideally,
more).
Would it surprise you to hear that over
three-quarters of the equity mutual funds
that are thrown at us from brokerage houses,
banks, and insurance agencies, and
advertised in magazines and on television...
perform worse than average each year?
(Actually, it could only surprise you if you
skipped Step One, as we've mentioned this
already.)
At first, it's shocking to think that the
achievements of paid professionals are so
significantly shy of mediocre. But on second
consideration, those numbers shouldn't
come as any surprise at all. Managed mutual
funds charge an average of 1.5% of their
investors' assets per year mostly to "fund"
their active and national marketing plans.
And most fund managers have enough to do
-- golf, tennis, socializing, and foxhunting
immediately come to mind -- without
having to spend time pondering growth
stocks, allocation models, and their
consistent, predictable, and enduring market
underperformance.

If that sounds harsh -- absolutely, it's meant

to be. Bad and overpriced mutual funds
deserve much poking -- and since they don't
provide much in the way of results, they
should at least be recognized for their vast
capacity to amuse. But we're here to do
much more than that, we hope. Finding
problems in the financial "services" industry
isn't much of a challenge. It's tacking on
useful solutions that makes things difficult.
Here's our solution to baseline
accountability: Any money that you have to
invest for five years or longer should not
underperform the market over that five-year
period. If it does, you've blundered, because
you can get average market performance out
of an index fund without doing any research
and without taking on significant risk. And
with The Motley Fool's "Portfolios 2000"
tracking system, you can now enter all of
your investments on this site and check their
returns against the market to find out how
each has been doing since the day you made
your purchases (this is a free service -- all
you have to do is register, which is also
free).
Stick close to those expectations; prepare
and aim to beat them; know why you have
or haven't; and laugh at the business pages
of our national newspapers and magazines,
which devote plenty of room to
"professional" predictions but don't typically
allow even a day each year for reviews of
bottom-line performance -- including the
deduction of all trading costs. Not a chance.
But we've gotten ahead of ourselves. Here
we've been yapping away about index funds
without even explaining what they are. So,
without further ado...
Next Step: Index Funds >>


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Fool.com: The 13 Steps to Investing Foolishly -- Step Four
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"Because the index fund makes
for a brainless and respectable
choice, it's really our first-stop
recommendation to investors of The 13 Steps
all kinds, novice and
experienced. Factor in
convenience, performance, low 2. Settle Your Finances
expense, and simplicity, and 3. Setting Expectations
these things beat the pants off 4. Index Funds
the two traditional options,
5. All About Drips
brokers and mutual fund
managers." -- You Have More 6. Open a Discount
Brokerage Account
Than You Think
7. Dow Approach
So let's review before proceeding. 8. Read Financial Info
1st Step: You have a general idea of what it 9. Evaluating
means to be a Foolish investor. Businesses
10. Understand Rule
2nd Step: You've gotten your personal Maker Investing
finances in order, paying down all credit
11. Consider Rule
card debt and working to set aside funds for Breakers and Small
investment over the next five years. Caps
3rd Step: You've set reasonable 12. Advanced Investing
expectations, and you're going to track your Issues
investments against the market. 13. Get Fully Foolish
And now, with a little money in hand, the

accounting standard established, and the
attitude attuned... what next?
http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/stepfour.htm (1 of 6) [06-11-1999 7:50:14 PM]

The S&P 500 Index Fund

Allow us to set the market standard for you
once and for all. Over the past 50 years, the
S&P 500, an index of 500 of the largest and
most profitable companies in the U.S., has
risen an average of 13.6% annually.
That means, if you could've invested
$10,000 into the S&P 500 fifty years back,
today you'd be able to call your discount
broker, sell your position for $5.78 million,
patriotically pay down
your taxes of $1.62
million, and you'd end up
with $4.16 million.
Sounds great, huh? But most people who
have invested in equity mutual funds haven't
pocketed that market average (or anything
close to it) -- unless they have invested in a
specific kind of mutual fund -- the index
fund.
With a low-cost, passively managed mutual
fund that tracks the S&P 500 ("the index
fund"), you actually get the S&P 500
returns,
minus
very
Over the last minimal
50 years, how expenses.
The
have actively index
mutual
managed fund is a
(read: Wise) computer-driven
fund that
funds done? makes
no
Not as well as attempt
to do
the index anything
they're except
match
measured the
market's
against -- not returns
nearly as well. -- there
is no
"highly

trained" Wise money manager actively

making daily changes in the index fund's
holdings.
Over the last 50 years, how have actively
managed (read: Wise) funds done by
comparison? Not as well as the index they're
measured against -- not nearly as well.
Managed funds have returned an average of
11.8%, a differential of 1.8%.
But oh what a huge difference that "little"
1.8% makes over time. Over the last 50
years, $10,000 put into the average managed
mutual fund would only have returned $2.59
million, or less than half of what the index
did. That's the power of compounding over
time, and that's the destructive power of
what "little" fees can do to erode your
returns. Think of those "little" managed
mutual fund fees as the Colorado River --
running through the Grand Canyon year
after year after year -- eroding your returns
until over time a huge chasm has been
carved through what might have been.
If you are picking a mutual fund for your
401(k) or 403(b) plan deferrals and there is
an index fund available in your list of
choices, the Foolish thing to do would be to
make it your only choice.
Spiders, Man!
You also may want to consider investing in
a close cousin of the index fund -- Standard
& Poor's Depositary Receipts. These
SPDRs, often called "Spiders," are
stock-like instruments designed to behave
much like the S&P 500 index. They have a
few advantages over funds. They trade on
the American Stock Exchange under the
ticker symbol "SPY," and each share is
valued at about one-tenth the value of the
S&P 500 Index. Read more about them by
clicking here.
Indexing Beyond the S&P 500

But are index funds just for the S&P 500?
Oh, no. If you can name a measurement of

the market, then somebody has probably

slapped an index fund on top of it: the
Russell 2000 (an index of 2,000
smaller-company stocks), the Wilshire 5000
(the entire stock market -- in reality there
are about 9,000 publicly traded companies,
but the "Wilshire 8,934" just wouldn't sound
too good), the Dow Jones Industrial
Average... The list of different indices that
have mutual funds tracking them is getting
longer all the time.
And we like them all. Almost.
Different indices will produce different
results over the short term, but various
ivory-tower academic studies show that
different sectors of the market have more or
less produced the same results over longer
periods of time. Last year (1998) the S&P
500, which indexes the largest companies in
America, returned 28%, the S&P MidCap
400 (which tracks medium-sized
companies) returned 9% less. However,
over the last 10 years, the S&P 500 has
returned 19.20% annually, and the S&P
MidCap 400 has returned 19.28%. Pretty
darn close.
Sometimes it takes longer for the averages
to even out like that. The Russell 2000, the
best-known smaller company (or small-cap)
index, has returned an average of 12.92%
over the last 10 years. Does that mean
small-cap companies can't keep up with
bigger companies, or that a small-cap index
fund should be avoided? Not if you look at
the longer term. Over the last 40 or 60 years,
the returns of the biggest and smallest
companies are nearly identical.
But watch carefully what some companies
are selling as "index funds." The real point
of investing in index funds is not to try to
pick the "hot" index or to pick the "cold"
index before it gets hot. Putting your money
into an index fund -- any index fund --
delivers great results to the long-term
shareholder because index funds keep costs
so low. The Vanguard 500 Index Fund has
annual costs of roughly 0.18%. Full-price

brokerage Morgan Stanley, on the other

hand, runs an S&P 500 index fund (buying
the exact same stocks as Vanguard's fund)
with annual costs of 1.5% -- nearly eight
times as much!
A Fool reminds you that the only reason to
move beyond the Vanguard 500 Index Fund
or another low cost index fund is if you
believe you can beat its performance, after
all of your investment costs have been
deducted: research reports, fax newsletters,
financial newspapers, business magazines,
etc. If you can't beat the index, you'd better
just join it... and keep adding savings to it
each year. In the decades ahead, you (and
your heirs) will be happy you did.
Some index funds will allow you to
establish a regular account for an initial
investment of as little as $500 if you set up
an automatic investment plan, adding $50 a
month thereafter. If you're looking to get
started investing with an even lower
amount, make sure to read Step 5: All About
DRIP Accounts.
Next Step: All About Drips >>

Basics | Register |
5. All About Drips
Brokerage Account
of the 13 Steps to
Maker Investing
Breakers and Small
Caps Email this
Format for
Friend

Issues

Fool.com: The 13 Steps to Investing Foolishly -- Step Five
FoolMart
Quick Find

Step 5: All About Drip Toolbox
Accounts ● Email this to a Friend

"Discipline, time, and
compounding are the three
main contributors to successful
investing -- not the amount of The 13 Steps
money with which you begin."
-- Investing Without a Silver
Spoon 2. Settle Your Finances
If you've read this far, you may be raring to 4. Index Funds
invest in individual stocks you've picked
yourself. You might be worried about one 5. All About Drips
thing, though: whether you have enough 6. Open a Discount
money to start. This is a common concern, Brokerage Account
and sadly we suspect that it's one of the 7. Dow Approach
main reasons why many people never get 8. Read Financial Info
around to investing in stocks. They figure
9. Evaluating
that it's just for the rich, or at least for those
Businesses
with more money.
10. Understand Rule
But we're here to set the record straight -- Maker Investing
you don't need very much money on hand to 11. Consider Rule
get started investing. If you have even $20 Breakers and Small
or $30 per month to invest in stocks, you Caps
can do so. You don't need to first
accumulate $3,000 or anything like that. Issues
$200 to start will be more than enough.
There are many ways to plunk your dollars
into stocks. The most common way is to buy
all the shares you want to buy at one time. If
you'd like to own 100 share of Coca-Cola
http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/stepfive.htm (1 of 8) [06-11-1999 7:50:47 PM]

and it's selling for $65 per share,

you cough up $6,500 and buy the
shares, paying your discount
broker a modest commission of
$20 or less. Alternatively, you could enroll
in Coke's "dividend reinvestment program"
(often called a "Drip") and spend as little as
$10 monthly on Coke shares, essentially
buying fractions of shares at a time --
without paying any brokerage commissions.
"Drip" isn't a very appealing name, but it
does get the point across. You're reinvesting
dividends, but you're also "dripping"
additional money into your holdings --
every month, ideally. Drip... drip... drip....
That adds up over time.
Dividend Reinvestment Plans

(DRPs) and Direct Stock
Purchase Plans (DSPs)
These two special types of programs permit
investors to bypass brokers (and broker
commissions!) and buy stock directly from
companies. These types of plans have been
growing in popularity in recent years and
more than 1,000 major corporations now
offer them. (With more companies
introducing them every day.)
With dividend reinvestment plans, the
company usually requires that you already
own at least one share of its stock before
you enroll. Furthermore, the share must be
in your name. This means that if you're not
already a shareholder, you'll have to buy at
least one share through a broker or a Drip
service.
If you use a broker, you'll need to pay a
commission on this intial pruchase. (More
about choosing a broker in Step 6.) In
addition, you'll
have to specify that you want the share(s)
registered in your name, not "street name."
Brokerages routinely register shares in
"street name," meaning that when you buy
stock through them, it's registered in their
name. This is normally not a problem. It
means that they hold the certificates for you

and that
makes it
If you have easier
even $20 or for you
to sell
$30 per month quickly,
without
to invest in having
stocks, you to mail
in
can do so. certificates.
Once
you own a share or more in your own name,
you can open a DRP account with the
company, and buy additional shares directly
through the company (or its agent).
Direct stock purchase plans operate in much
the same way, except they don't require you
to own at least one share before enrolling.
That's right -- you can even buy your very
first share through the program.
These DRPs and DSP plans vary a little
from one to another. Some charge you a few
pennies per share when you buy, others (the
ones we like best) charge nothing. Some
levy a small fee when you sell, others do
not. Some permit automatic regular
purchases, taking money directly from your
bank account if you'd like. While some of
these plans represent a great bargain, others,
depending on your circumstances, might not
be worth it. You need to examine the
particulars of the plan(s) you're interested in
before deciding to enroll.
Advantages
Clearly, these programs are a godsend for
those who don't have big bundles of money
to invest at a time.
They're also wonderful in that they will
reinvest any dividends sent your way. This
can be a really big deal. Many investors
don't appreciate the power of reinvested
dividends. Let's look at an example.
If you'd held shares of Coca-Cola for the 18
years between 1981 through 1998, they

would have appreciated a total of 4,718%.

That's an annualized gain of 24% per year.
(Who said enormous global companies are
slow growers?) But wait, there's more!
Here's the "secret formula" for investing in
Coke: if you'd reinvested all the dividends
paid to you back into more shares of Coke,
your total gain would have been 56%
higher, at 7,364%. Annualized, that's 27%
per year.
A $5,000 investment in Coke in 1981 would
have grown to about $240,000 without
reinvested dividends. With dividends
reinvested, it would have become roughly
$373,000.
More than 100 companies have plans that
give investors an extra benefit, allowing
them to purchase stock at a discount to the
current market price. These discounts can
range anywhere from one to ten percent.
This provides an immediate return on
investment and sometimes balances out any
fees associated with setting up the plan or
buying the stock. Some companies,
however, only discount shares bought with
dividends, not shares purchased with
additional cash. Regardless, any such
discount is a good thing.
Another advantage to these plans is that they
permit you to slowly build up positions in
stocks over a long period of time. This
might not seem like such a big deal, but
imagine that you really want to invest in
Wal-Mart, but it seems very overpriced right
now. If you're a typical investor, not using
DRPs or DSPs, you'll probably wait on the
sidelines for the stock price to fall a bit. If it
never falls, you're out of luck. But if you go
with one of these programs and choose to
invest small amounts of money in Wal-Mart
each month, you do establish a position in
the company immediately and keep adding
to it. If the stock price falls, your regularly
invested amount will buy you more shares.
(And you might even opt to send in more
money than usual, to buy more shares.) If it
keeps rising, the shares you already bought
keep rising in value.

Finally, while these plans are best for those

with limited incomes, they're also good for
anyone who wants to invest regularly -- and
you can buy as much as $1,000 -- often
much more -- of stock at any time through a
DRP or DSP. In fact, you can treat the plans
as if you're buying each stock just once from
a broker. The reason you might want to do
this is to take advantage of the reinvested
dividends. Be aware, though, that some
brokerages now offer dividend reinvestment
with no commissions. So for those with
greater sums to invest, DRP and DSP plans
are no longer as important as they were a
few years ago.
Disadvantages
Every silver lining has a cloud, though, and
these plans are no exception. A major
drawback to them is the paperwork
involved. If you invest small sums regularly
in a handful of companies, you'll be
receiving statements from each plan every
time you invest. You'll need to keep
everything very organized and record all
your transactions for tax purposes. Taxes
can get a little hairy when dealing with
DRPs and DSPs if you haven't kept good
records. Fortunately, there is good software
on the market that can ease some of the
record-keeping hassles.
Another disadvantage, although it's not a
major one for most Fools, relates to timing.
Let's say you're convinced of the value of a
stock and are eager to buy. Using a broker,
you simply make a phone call or execute the
trade online. But with dividend reinvestment
plans,
you have to send in a form and a check. This
will take some time. Also, many plans make
all their purchases and sales only once a
month, delaying things further. So you
might not get into the stock exactly when
you want and might end up paying a little
more than you wanted for it. Similarly,
when you want to sell a stock, it's not going
to happen immediately. It might take a few

weeks.
For
someone More than 100
who's
regularly
companies
sending have plans
in
checks, that give
perhaps
every
investors an
month, extra benefit,
these
delays allowing them
don't
matter.
to purchase
But be stock at a
aware of
them. discount...
More
Information
There's plenty more to learn about dividend
reinvestment plans and direct stock purchase
plans. Start with our Fool's School section
on Drips which explains direct investing
from A to Z. Then check out the Drip
Portfolio, where we explain in greater detail
how the plans work through the use of our
own real money. Our Drip portfolio was
launched with just $500 and we add $100
per month to it. The portfolio is meant to
teach how someone with a limited budget
can profitably invest in stocks. Its managers
report on the portfolio's progress and discuss
companies in the portfolio and companies
under consideration to be added to the
portfolio. (The first four companies in the
portfolio were Campbell Soup, Intel,
Johnson & Johnson and Mellon Bank.)
Be sure to check out Investing Without a
Silver Spoon where the Fool's Drip Port
manager Jeff Fischer demystifies the world
of direct investing by providing everything
you need to know about getting started. The
primer also gives details and contact
information for more than 1,000 direct
investment plans (over 300 pages!) and a

look at the industries and companies to

strongly consider for direct investing
A motherlode of information on DRPs and
DSPs can be found at Netstockdirect.com.
This site lists details on just about every one
of the 1,600 DRP and DSP programs. At
Netstock you can download plan enrollment
information, and you can also begin to
invest directly online in 300 companies (and
growing). Now that's convenient!
The National Association of Investors Corp.
(NAIC), the country's authority on
investment clubs, offers a DRP enrollment
service, the "The Low Cost Investment
Plan." For just $7.00 plus the price of one
share of stock in any of the participating
companies, you'll be enrolled and can then
add to your shares regularly at little or no
additional charge. You do need to be an
NAIC member, however, and the annual fee
is $39. For more info, click on the links
above.
Other Resources
The Moneypaper website lists information
on more than 1,100 companies that offer
DRPs. The site also offers the Temper of
Times DRP enrollment service, which will
purchase initial shares and enroll investors
in DRP plans for a nominal fee. Details are
available at the website.
Direct Stock Purchase Plan Clearinghouse,
at 800-774-4117, is free service that allows
investors to order up to five prospectuses
from companies that offer DSPs. (This is for
direct stock purchase companies only, not
DRP only companies.)
Now, onto our next stop on this Foolish
journey...
Next Step: Open a Discount Brokerage
Account >>

1. What is Ask a
Foolishness Foolish
2. Settle Your Question |
Finances Investing
Basics |
3. Setting
Register |
Expectations
Personal
4. Index Funds Finance | Get a
5. All About Broker | Help
Drips Desk
6. Open a
Discount Free Guide
Brokerage
If you register
Account
for The Motley
7. Dow Fool you will
Approach receive a
printed guide of
8. Read the 13 Steps to
Financial Investing
Info Foolishly. Best
of all, the guide
9. Evaluating and registration
Businesses are completely
10. Understand FREE!
Rule Maker
Investing Toolbox
11. Consider
Rule Email
Format
Breakers this to for
and Small a Printing
Friend
Caps
12. Advanced
Investing
Issues
13. Get Fully
Foolish

Fool.com: The 13 Steps to Investing Foolishly -- Step Six
FoolMart
Quick Find

Step 6: Open a Toolbox
Discount Brokerage ● Email this to a Friend

Account
Top Five Things to Say
While Breaking Up With
The 13 Steps
Your Full-Service Broker
5. I know you'll find 2. Settle Your Finances
somebody else.
4. What about my 4. Index Funds
needs?
5. All About Drips
3. I feel that I've 6. Open a Discount
grown, and you Brokerage Account
haven't.
7. Dow Approach
2. I'm just not ready 8. Read Financial Info
for a long-term
9. Evaluating
commitment with a
Businesses
short-term trader.
10. Understand Rule
1. No, no -- it's not me Maker Investing
-- it's you. 11. Consider Rule
--The Motley Fool Calendar Breakers and Small
2000 Caps
Issues
Full-Service Brokers 13. Get Fully Foolish
Full-service broker is the name given to
those expensively dressed souls who work
for Merrill Lynch, Salomon Smith Barney,
Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Discover, etc.
http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/stepsix.htm (1 of 9) [06-11-1999 7:51:30 PM]

You've seen their oh-so-somber

TV commercials too many times,
particularly during sporting events
and Sunday morning political
commentary shows. These companies can
afford to advertise during major TV
broadcasts because they make a truly
remarkable amount of money. A good deal
of that lucre is made through "investment
banking" (helping other corporations with
their financing needs), but a very healthy
percentage of their profits are made on the
"retail side," through brokering.
Full-service (or full-price) brokers serve as
the middlemen through which you can relay
your trading orders to "the floor" of a stock
exchange or to an electronic trading system.
You send in an order, and they forward it on
to their guys down in the trenches to fill for
you.
Now, the phrase "full-service" indicates that
these particular brokers are there to attend to
ALL the needs of their account holders.
That includes generating investment ideas
for you, giving you stock quotes whenever
you request them, managing your account
(in many cases), providing investment
research materials, helping you with tax
information -- the works.
In return for these full services, the broker
will charge you very high rates to trade
stocks in your account. Where discount
brokers (we'll get to them in a second)
typically charge between $5 and $20 for an
online trade, you'll probably pay around
$150 for the average trade done through the
typical full-service broker. Further,
full-service firms often charge annual
"maintenance" fees through which they
grant themselves a generous slice of your
assets, say about $150 a year or more. In
other words, they provide an expensive
"service."
OK, two problems here. (Actually, dozens
of problems, but we'll keep it to a brief two
right here.)

The first is that most brokers (or, more

snootily, "Financial Consultants") who give
advice are just glorified salesmen, shopping
around their brokerage house's stock picks
or pricey mutual funds. Brokers are getting
paid a percentage (the commission) for
every sale they make. While there are some
knowledgeable brokers who do a knockout
job for their clients, many aren't actually
very good investors and lack impressive or
even average performance histories.
Certainly the performance of Wall Street
brokerage "model portfolios," as reported
from time to time in The Wall Street
Journal, leaves virtually everything to be
desired.
The second problem is that full-service
brokers usually receive commissions on
each trade, so their compensation is closely
tied with how often their clients' accounts
are traded. In other words, part of the
commission YOU pay to the firm may wind
up directly in your broker's pocket. So your
full-service broker may be paid not for how
well you do (which is in your best interest,
obviously), but rather on how often you
trade (often the opposite of your best
interest). Highly distressing. This is why
"full-service brokering" of the common
variety is rapidly wasting away with the
increasing use of online brokerages.
The full-service industry will save itself
only when it bases its incentives on
performance, not trading frequency. Your
broker should be working to give you the
best consistent long-term, market-beating
return possible, and should receive bonuses
based on a percentage of your long-term
profits. Instead, he's getting paid slices of
what he induces you to wheel and deal.
Until this situation changes, you will
continue to see full-service firms getting
chopped at the knees by the increasing
amount of do-it-yourself investing. Which
brings us to the topic of...
Discount Brokers

Simply put, discount brokers provide a more

affordable means for investors to execute
their trades. Discount brokers are for
do-it-yourself investors. The idea of
managing your own money is a powerful
one to the same sort of personality who
wants to install the garbage disposal, change
the oil filter, and patch the hole in the
ceiling. (Managing one's own money also
appeals to those with no carpentry skills at
all, we've found.) The idea of paying
exorbitant fees to some full-price broker for
sub-par returns is anathema to this hardy,
independent soul. But just as you need to go
out and select tools and materials before you
can begin to fix things around your house,
you need to learn a little before you go out
and pick a brokerage.
There are lots and lots -- seriously, lots -- of
discount brokers. There are so many, in fact,
that it can be quite bewildering to figure out
which one to use if you're a newcomer.
We've set up a little area on our site to help
you figure out how to select a discount
broker, and even more helpful is our
Discount Broker message board which
features the Foolish community providing
the best answers anywhere on choosing the
right discount broker for your needs. To
provide an example, Foolish poster RheS
took the time to post this helpful opinion
(slightly edited) to one Fool's question on
selecting the right discount broker:
"I think the first step is to get
your mind in order. What kind
of investor/trader do you intend
to be? This matters because
you don't want to pay extra for
services from the brokerage
that you don't need, but you
don't want a broker that doesn't
do what you do want. So
consider yourself!
"But, don't limit yourself too
much. Think beyond the first
$2000 that you have and
consider what you're going to

want to do for a year or two.

Because you probably don't
want to change brokers every
few months, so you'll want to
choose one to last a bit.
"Take a look at the FAQ for
this group, and the Fool's
Discount Broker Center. Both
have a bunch of pointers to
various broker comparisons,
which will give you some ideas
about what other people
thought were important in a
broker. Since every chart puts a
different broker at the top, you
can see that it depends on your
own priorities. Build your own
chart.
"Read a bunch of this board. I
suggest going back about six
weeks! Yes, I know this is a lot
of articles and many are repeats
of the same old question,
"Which one is the best broker?"
or the same old answer. But
between all of that, you will
find a bunch of different
people's comments, which, if
they're smart (and we mostly
are, here, really), include their
reasoning, so you can see if it
fits in with yours. And, if
you're lucky, you'll come
across a few questions that you
ought to be asking but haven't
thought of yet. This alone
makes the reading worth it.
"Look at the broker sites
themselves. Most have trading
demos of some sort and most
have their fees and commission
statements online. Call their
new accounts desk, and see
whether they're managing to
answer their phones. Or stop in
at a local office, if that's a
feature that matters to you.

"And read those, long,

sleep-inducing account
agreements, too, at least when
you get to a short list. You will
sign a form that says you agree
to your broker's agreement, so
you'd better be sure that you do
(or at least that nothing in it
surprises you too much).
"As you narrow your list,
remember that there are
probably several brokers who
would do just fine. So, if you
end up making the last choice
between two because one
sounded nicer on the phone, or
you liked one's web site a tiny
bit better, don't worry. The
other is probably nearly as
good for you -- and you're
likely to be perfectly satisfied
with either."
Many thanks, RheS, for taking the time to
distill your thoughts. Foolish readers should
check out the message board, ask questions,
and determine which brokers are providing
the best service out there.
Keep this list of ten Foolish considerations
in mind as you embark on your search:
1. Read the fine print. Some brokers
"forget" to mention their minimum
charge, while others print out-of-date
claims. Keep in mind that there are
virtually always going to be hidden
costs, from account minimum
balances, to fees for late payments or
bounced checks, to transaction and
postage and handling fees.
2. Commission schedules can vary

considerably within the same
brokerage, depending on the trade. If
you most typically buy 1000 shares of
stock below $10 a share, use this
trade as a test of your prospective
brokers. See how much of a
commission you'd pay for your

typical trade with each prospective

brokerage.
3. If you want to trade foreign stocks

or options or penny stocks, none of
which we generally counsel doing,
make sure your discounter is set up to
trade them.
4. Check out the margin interest rate,

if you plan on ever borrowing money
from your broker for purchases.
Margin rates vary substantially from
broker to broker. If you're Foolish,
you won't want to even think about
using margin until you've been
buying and selling your own stocks
for a couple of years. (For more on
margin, see Step 12, Advanced
Investing Issues.)
5. The availability of checking

accounts or bill paying may be very
attractive to some. Discount brokers
are expanding their banking services
in an attempt to make the most from
each customer. Do you really still
need a checking account from a
separate bank? A lot of Fools don't.
6. Mutual funds: You probably know

already that we're not big fans of the
world of underperforming mutual
funds, but, heck, maybe you disagree
with us. If so, and you're looking to
buy mutual funds, learn which funds
are offered from any prospective
discount brokers.
7. Research and investing tools:

There's plenty of free research and
heaps of investing tools available
right here at fool.com, and at plenty
of other sites on the Internet, but one
of the perks of a brokerage account is
(or should be) getting access to
additional screening tools, analyst
research reports, stock charts, and

more.
8. Money market sweeps, or other

interest paid on cash in your account.
Does your prospective brokerage
sweep any unused funds into a money
market account at the end of the day?
Check into it.
9. Touch-tone (phone) trading and/or

a local office. For those still too
frequent times when there are
problems getting a trade placed
online, you might want to place a
trade the old-fashioned way --
through automated touch-tone dialing
or by phoning a human broker.
Additionally, some people aren't
going to be fully comfortable without
having a real bricks and mortar office
locally available. Compare and
contrast the choices out there to find
something that makes you the most
comfortable.
10. Free perks are free perks. Some are

even worth having. Whether you're
talking frequent flyer miles, free
trades on your birthday, or even cold
hard cash placed right into your
account, there are some things out
there that could tip the balance in
favor of choosing one discounter over
another. Don't sacrifice good
customer service for some perk you
don't really need, but see what the
offers are out there and factor that
into your ultimate choice.
What do you do once you've chosen a
discount broker and are ready to pick your
first stocks? Move on to Step 7 to consider
some Dow heavyweights.
Next Step: Dow Approach >>


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Fool.com: The 13 Steps to Investing Foolishly -- Step Seven
FoolMart
Quick Find

Step 7: Dow Investing Toolbox
Strategies ● Email this to a Friend

"To recap, building a Foolish
Dow Portfolio takes no more
than fifteen minutes a year,
demands no research materials The 13 Steps
other than one copy of 'The
Wall Street Journal,' is low in
commissions, assumes minimal 2. Settle Your Finances
risk, on average triples per year 3. Setting Expectations
the returns of your average 4. Index Funds
mutual fund, and demands no
5. All About Drips
more than a telephone or
modem relationship with a 6. Open a Discount
deep-discount broker." -- The Brokerage Account
Motley Fool Investment Guide 7. Dow Approach
Ok. Step 4 convinced you that index funds
9. Evaluating
are the greatest thing since soap, but can you Businesses
do better? Do you want to do better? A
single-decision investment like an index 10. Understand Rule
Maker Investing
fund that will outperform 80% to 90% of all
mutual funds may be all you want or need 11. Consider Rule
from your investments. But better is Breakers and Small
possible. It takes more work, of course. Caps
About 15 minutes a year, once you get the 12. Advanced Investing
concept. Issues
Consider this: If you can beat the market by
just 2% a year, after 25 years your account
total would be roughly 50% higher. That's
the magic of compounding. Of course,
http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/stepseven.htm (1 of 7) [06-11-1999 7:52:06 PM]

beating the market by 2% a year

over 25 years isn't easy. Most
mutual fund managers would sell
their grandmothers for such a
record. And there are no guarantees, but
read on for the story of an investment
strategy that, over the past 25 years, has
beaten the market by a far higher margin.
(Past performance is no guarantee of future
results -- please stay to the right unless
passing.)
We call it the Foolish Four. It is one of
several strategies that are part of our Dow
Investing approach. Actually, all of the
Dow Investing strategies have beaten the
market by 3% or more over the past 25
years. We like the Foolish Four the best,
though, because it combines incredible
returns with relatively low risk.
One caveat: Because it involves selling
stocks every year, this is a strategy that will
incur capital gains taxes if used in a non-tax
advantaged account. Holding an index fund
or just buying and holding stocks for many
years will provide returns that do not
involve paying annual capital gains taxes, so
the Foolish Four approach is one that would
work better in an IRA than in a normal
taxable account.
(For more on why the Fool Four is
tailor-made to be used in an IRA, check out
our IRA area. The strategy still works in a
taxable account, but it loses some of its
advantage over long-term, buy-and-hold
strategies. If you have both retirement and
regular investment accounts, you always
want to be sure that you use the retirement
account for the strategies that involve the
most frequent trading.)
With Dow Investing, you limit your stock
selections to
a group of companies that are financially
strong, leaders in their field (and, indeed,
world leaders), and the bluest of the blue
chip stocks. If you select from that group a
few companies that, on average, outperform
the group, you can enjoy high returns with

low risk
and beat
For the 25 the
years between market
without
1974 and having
to spend
1998, the hours
Foolish Four researching
each
strategy grew company's
financial
at an statements,
competitive
annualized situation,
rate of and
management
24.55%, expertise.
So how
turning a do you
hypothetical select
the few
$10,000 into companies
that are
over $2.4 likely to
million. outperform?
We'll get
to that.
First, let's look at the group.
Obviously we are talking about the Dow
Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). Many
people don't even realize that the famed
Dow, star of the nightly news, actually
consists of only 30 companies. That's it, just
30 companies that represent American
industry. To be chosen as a DJIA company,
a company has to be a leader in its industry,
financially sound, blah, blah, blah, I think
we covered this above. The point is that
Dow companies may have rough times (we
hope so, otherwise, the strategy wouldn't
work), but they have the resources,
experience, and brand recognition to
weather most storms. They may be down for
a while, but they are rarely out.
The secret (well, it's not much of a secret) to
the Foolish Four's success, and all Dow
Investing strategies' success, is the dividend

yield. It's the clue that helps us pick those

few stocks that are underpriced relative to
the other Dow stocks, yet still financially
strong. The dividend yield is simply the
annual dividend divided by the current
price. It's like the interest rate that a stock
pays. (Yield is only part of the return you
get from owning a stock, of course.
Investors also expect the stock's price to go
up and provide them with a nice capital
gain. Dividends plus capital gains equals
total return.)
A stock may go out of favor for many
reasons -- competition, a big lawsuit, global
financial instability, lower profits, etc. This
causes the price to drop, naturally, as some
investors do the usual panic thing and sell
because the short-term prospects look bad.
While Wall Street pundits wail that the
stock is tanking; we say it has gone on sale!
As long as the company continues to pay
out its normal dividend, that price drop
drives the yield up. (Remember, yield =
dividend/price.) And as long as the company
can stay on sound financial footing and
weather the storm (that's why we limit our
universe to the Dow stocks), the higher
yield will eventually attract investors, which
will lead to a price increase, and voila! -- the
stock starts a turnaround that attracts more
investors, and pretty soon it's back in
everyone's good graces. The trick is to catch
it before the recovery -- in other words,
while the yield is still high and the price is
still low.
Of course, it doesn't always work that way.
Some stocks don't recover for years and
some get into such trouble that they cut or
drop their dividend, and then look out
below! That's the nature of investing. Get
used to it.
But for the strategy to work, it doesn't have
to pick the best stocks, or even avoid all
losing stocks, it just has to pick three or four
above average stocks most years and do it
consistently year in and year out. That's all
it does, but it does it well enough that the

long-term returns are spectacular.

Selecting those few stocks is obviously the
key. You need three things: a list of the
current Dow stocks, their dividend yields,
and their current prices. You can find these
things in most financial publications,
various online sites, or you can look right
here on the Fool: Today's Stock Lists.
There are three main variations of the Dow

Dividend approach. The first, known as the
High-Yield 10 or, sometimes, the Dogs of
the Dow, is to simply buy the 10
We like this
strategy because it
combines
incredible returns
with relatively low
risk.
highest yielding stocks (in equal dollar
amounts, not equal share amounts) and hold
them for one year. After the year is up,
update your statistics, sell any of your
stocks not still on the top ten list, and
replace them with the new highest yielders.
Simple enough? From 1974 through 1998,
this approach has compounded at an annual
rate of 17.95%, beating most professional
money managers soundly. In dollar terms, a
$10,000 portfolio would have increased to
$620,000 over those 25 years. Compare that
with the Dow's average compounded return
of 15.03% over that same time span, which
would have turned that same $10,000 into
just over $330,000.
The second variation, which was
popularized by Michael O'Higgins in his
book, Beating the Dow is called the Beating
the Dow 5. In this version, you start with the
same 10 stocks used for the High-Yield 10,
but you buy only the 5 least expensive of the

10. Buying the cheapest of the 10 stocks has

proven over time to improve the approach's
returns without adding undue risk. For the
last 26 years, the BTD5 approach has
compounded at an annual rate of 19.39%,
turning a $10,000 investment started in 1974
into over $800,000 at the end of 1998.
Our favorite strategy offers a combination
of amazingly high returns and low volatility.
It selects just four stocks from the Dow
universe, hence the Foolish Four.
The Foolish Four stocks are selected based
on the ratio between each stock's yield and
price. The actual formula is yield divided by
the square root of price. Once you have that
ratio for each of the 30 Dow stocks, you
rank the stocks by that ratio from highest to
lowest. The Foolish Four are stocks 2
through 5 on the list. (The highest-ranked
stock is dropped because it tends to have
more really baaaad years. Sometimes really
high yield and low price can be too much of
a good thing.) Buy them, hold them for a
year, then trade them in on a new set chosen
by the same method.
For the 25 years between 1974 and 1998,
this strategy grew at an annualized rate of
24.55%, turning a hypothetical $10,000 into
over $2.4 million.
Interested? Read more at these Foolish Four
Links:
● Current Foolish Four Portfolio Report
● Current Dow Stocks

● Dow Statistics Center
● Detailed Strategy Explanation
● Foolish Four History
● The Foolish Four Book
● Discuss Dow Investing
Want to sink your teeth into something a
little more challenging than the practically
foolproof Dow approach? Want to really
learn about a company that interests you?
Read on in Step 8.

Next Step: Read Financial Info >>


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Fool.com: The 13 Steps to Investing Foolishly -- Step Eight
FoolMart
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Step 8: Get Toolbox
Information on Great ● Email this to a Friend

Companies
"Looking for great individual
stocks to research and invest in
is no more difficult than The 13 Steps
studying the companies that 1. What is Foolishness
provide great products or 2. Settle Your Finances
services in your life. Wall 3. Setting Expectations
Street professionals trapped
4. Index Funds
forty stories up in Manhattan
may get overpaid to do just 5. All About Drips
this, using a variety of tools, 6. Open a Discount
but then in contests against a Brokerage Account
chimpanzee armed with a 7. Dow Approach
finger (and some stocks
symbols to point at), the pros
often lose. 'The Wall Street 9. Evaluating
Journal' runs a regular contest Businesses
that demonstrates this, pitting 10. Understand Rule
expert stock pickers against Maker Investing
stocks chosen randomly via the 11. Consider Rule
dart and a board, and the Breakers and Small
dartboard often wins. Nor will Caps
these experts at big investment 12. Advanced Investing
firms win in competition with Issues
you, Fool." -- The Motley Fool
Investment Workbook
Once you feel prepared to graduate from

simple and mechanical forms of investing
(index funds and the Dow approaches), your
http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/stepeight.htm (1 of 9) [06-11-1999 7:52:31 PM]

next step will be picking stocks on your

own. You'll need to learn what kinds of
companies to seek out and then you'll have
to evaluate them, to make sure they're
moving in the right direction and are worthy
of your trust.
Mechanical Stock Screens

Let's spend a little time discussing how you
might zero in on promising companies. With
more than 9,000 publicly traded firms out
there, the field of possible investments can
be daunting and confusing.
One handy tool for investors is the stock
screen. A stock screen is basically picking a
measure or two, and running the entire
world of stocks through those measures to
see how many and which ones meet your
criteria. For example, you could screen all
stocks for those with a dividend above 4%.
Or for those with annual revenues of $5
billion or more and net profit margins of at
least 10%. You get the idea.
Another example of a stock screen is
looking for a stock with a price of at least $7
per share, sales and earnings growth of at
least 25%, $500 million or less in sales, and
insider holdings of 10% or more. Seems like
a natural idea, right? Just kidding. Actually,
these are a few of the criteria on which we
base our own Foolish 8 stock screen
spreadsheet, which is a good place to start if
you're looking to invest in "small cap"
stocks, which we'll get into more later.
Now, should you go out and immediately
buy the stocks that pop up through your
screen? Not at all. At least not without
further research. But screens can be an
effective way to reduce your contenders
from thousands of stocks to perhaps dozens.
We have an area of Da Fool dedicated 24/7
to examining and explaining stock screens.
Other Screens
Screens can be even simpler. For example, a
basic screen might be to ask yourself, "What

products or services do I (and most people I

know) use all the time and like a lot? What
companies make them?" Your
brain can perform this type of
screen all by itself, and we'll help
get it started: McDonald's,
Coca-Cola, Gillette, General Motors,
Wal-Mart, AT&T, Black & Decker and
Federal Express are possibilities. Not a bad
bunch of companies. If you were to take this
list and study the companies further, you'd
probably end up with quite a few very
promising investments.
Another uncomplicated way to find
interesting companies is through the news.
If you hear that Costco is coming out with
an exciting and innovative new kind of
store, it might be a good time to take a close
look at it. If a company announces that it's
recalling a product and its stock drops 20%
on the news, you might do well to
investigate whether the market has
overreacted. If so, this could be a good time
to invest in the company (providing that it
was and is a strong and growing company,
with its financial house in order).
Other places to come up with starting points
could be from the Fool's News area, which
features a well-known company debated
weekly in Dueling Fools. The Strategies
area features evaluations and discussions of
numerous other smaller and lesser-known
companies. Check it out sometime if you're
interested, but for now, let's assume that
you've found a few companies you're
interested in and you want to learn more
about them.
Gathering Information
No right-minded Fool (and what other kind
is there, really?) would think of buying a
stock based merely on cocktail party chatter,
a broker's recommendation, or even a
message board overflowing with
exuberance. Even if the stock is one you
discovered on your own, you shouldn't just
run out and buy shares. First get your hands

on the company's financial information, and

get to know the situation thoroughly.
It's easier than ever to get information for
companies listed on U.S. exchanges. Below
we list the telephone numbers for each of
the three big players. Just call and ask for
the company's phone number. (Your local
librarian should be able to help you get the
number, as well.)
Nasdaq (Over-the-Counter): 202.496.2500
AMEX (American Stock
212.306.1490
Exchange):
NYSE (New York Stock
212.656.3218
Exchange):
Give your company a call and ask for the

"Investor Relations" department and request
an "investor information packet." A full
packet contains the following, all of which
you would want and should ask for:
1. The Annual Report (most recent)
2. The 10-K (most recent)
3. The 10-Q (most recent)
4. Press releases (all recent ones)
5. Analysts' reports (any available
up-to-date ones)
By the way -- are you wondering what all
this is going to cost you? Nothing more than
a holiday bottle of wine for your postal
carrier who'll be delivering all the packets
you order. These packets are free!
But, hey, let's face it -- you're online, and
nowadays, this is really the place to do the
best research. You can get a substantial
amount of this information online. You can
acquire all recent SEC filings, including
company 10-Ks and 10-Qs, without ever
leaving your keyboard. All you need to
know is a company's ticker symbol, and you
can acquire news, financial snapshots, and
estimates of future earnings. Whoops,
maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves with
that kind of talk. Sorry. But keep reading
and we'll explain.
Learning About the Company

You've got the company's information

packet. Let's have a look. The first thing
you'll want to do is scan everything in order
to get a sense of the company's mission, its
products, its attitude, and its prospects. Let's
take a Foolish example.
Say you're an ice cream aficionado who's
decided to sort through your favorite
industry for potential investments. Let's
further assume that while you love ice
cream, you have a particular affection for
Sal and Harry's Froosh, an irresistible
all-natural fruit ice that is mixed, frozen, and
distributed out of the company's
headquarters in Bastrop, Louisiana. You
have called Bastrop to request the
information from Sal and Harry's Froosh,
and now it's arrived.
The annual report will probably feature
some glossy photos of Sal and Harry
standing next to Froosh-making machinery.
In the back, as with every annual report,
you'll find more boring-looking financial
statements. (Once you become a seasoned
investor, these pages will actually be the
most exciting ones to you.) There are three
main financial statements included:
● The Income Statement (or Statement
of Operations)
● The Balance Sheet
●The Statement of Cash Flows

The easiest of the three is the income
statement, which shows how much money
the company made over the last year and its
profit margins. Next up is the balance sheet,
revealing how much cash, inventories, and
debt the company has. The third and most
complex is the statement of cash flows,
revealing how much money the company is
really making, as it works through
operations, makes investments, and borrows
money.
When studying a company's financial
statements, you should be able to determine
how quickly sales are growing, how the
company is financing its growth, whether it

has taken on too much debt, how efficiently

it's collecting its accounts receivable,
how
much
profit it's It's easier than
making
on its
ever to get
products information for
and
services, companies
and all
kinds of
listed on U.S.
fascinating exchanges.
things
like that.
You should also be paying attention to
trends, to see if the firm's financial health is
improving or declining. And finally, it's best
to compare companies with their industry
peers to see how they stack up.
These financial statements will also appear
in the 10-Q and 10-K reports. The 10-K is
issued once a year, along with the annual
report, while 10-Qs are issued three times a
year, at the end of the intervening quarters.
The 10-Q summarizes the company's
quarterly performance. The 10-K is
dedicated to a company's financials, not its
story, and thus includes information you
simply won't find in most annual reports,
like insider stock holdings and brief
biographies of the management team. The
latter is of extreme interest to a Fool. We
love to read about how the company
chairman filed for personal bankruptcy in
1989, or graduated from our college.
Press releases are an even more frequent
source of information on your company, and
should be read and followed by hands-on
investors. Those who prefer to keep up less
frequently with their stocks can usually
safely ignore press releases, and just catch
the quarterly reports. Of course, this works
much better with safer, bigger companies; if
you own volatile small-cap growth stocks
that move radically based on info in press
releases, it behooves you to plug into these
things. Do keep in mind, of course, that

press releases in general tend to put a

positive spin on news, since they're issued
by the company.
Analyst Reports
Most companies have been examined and
analyzed by one or more financial analysts.
These professionals, most often employees
of brokerage houses, will write reports that
include the analyst's opinion of the stock as
well as estimates of future earnings and
other prognostications. This information is
public. Assuming the company whose
financial packet you've received has an
analyst following it, one of these reports
might be included in the packet. (If not, the
company will provide you with analyst
names and phone numbers, so you can call
and make your own request.) Reading
analyst reports is a truly useful exercise.
(However, there's one part of it that the
analyst and the Wise media think is Very
Important, and yet is virtually meaningless
-- the Buy, Sell or Hold "recommendation.")
For a Fool, some of the most valuable
information in the report are the estimated
earnings per share figures. (The better
reports print estimates quarter-by-quarter.)
By matching the analyst's quarterly
estimates against the quarterly earnings
announcements as they come out, investors
can determine whether a business and its
profits per share are meeting, exceeding, or
underperforming analysts' expectations.
We at The Motley Fool love getting our
hands on analyst reports, recognizing that
analysts know a fair amount about how to
evaluate a particular company's prospects
for growth. Hey, it's their full-time job. And
while we don't accept every assertion made
by any analyst, we think that confronting
their analyses is a key ingredient to
sharpening our understanding of the story of
our companies.
That's the good side to analysts' opinions.
(Red Alert. Red Alert. Fool attack coming.
All Wise men of Wall Street prepare to be

fired upon.)
We do NOT advise you to pay attention to
the analysts' ratings on securities, whether
"Strong Buy," "Buy," "Accumulate,"
"Attractive," "Speculative Hold," whatever.
These subjective judgments may be slanted
according to a blatant and unapologetic
conflict of interest that exists in the
brokerage industry. The same firms whose
ANALYSIS you're reading ALSO have
built their businesses upon FINANCING the
companies they're analyzing. Thus, you
won't be surprised to hear that the first buy
recommendations you'll typically read about
a new company that just came public will
virtually always appear from the very same
firm or firms that underwrote the public
offering. (Hmmmm...)
Further, and more importantly, if the
brokerage firm analyst were ever to put an
outright SELL recommendation on a given
company's stock, that company would
probably never again consider doing any
financing business with the analyst's firm.
Thus, you'll almost never see a SELL
recommendation from Wall Street. In fact,
Wall Street analysts who see a stock selling
at $10, which they predict will go down to
$5, will still often call their rating of the
company "Neutral" rather than "Sell."
Foolish Research Reports

In response to this situation, we at the
Motley Fool are now providing an
alternative to the analyst reports of Wall
Street. Through our our bi-monthly Internet
Report, our year-end Industry Focus, and
our stock research reports, the Fool is
producing research that is free of any
conflicts of interest or inside-the-Street code
words (like "Hold" really means "sell
now"). If you're interested in some
money-back-if-you're-not-totally-satisfied
Foolish research, check our what we offer.
Now that you've gathered the information

you need, it's on to what to do with it.

Next Step: Evaluating Businesses >>

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Fool.com: The 13 Steps to Investing Foolishly -- Step Nine
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Step 9: Evaluating Toolbox
Businesses ● Email this to a Friend

"Baptisms by fire are common
on the stock market. Poll the
populace and we feel quite sure
you'll discover that most people The 13 Steps
had little to no understanding
of what they first invested in."
-- You Have More Than You 2. Settle Your Finances
Think 3. Setting Expectations
4. Index Funds
Notice that the title of this step is
"Evaluating Businesses," not "Evaluating 5. All About Drips
Stocks." Though evaluating a stock is most 6. Open a Discount
often the way that investment research is Brokerage Account
phrased, Fools know that when you buy a 7. Dow Approach
share of stock you are really buying a share 8. Read Financial Info
in a business. To figure out how much the
9. Evaluating
stock is worth, therefore, first you need to
Businesses
determine how much the whole business is
worth. You can begin this process by 10. Understand Rule
assessing the company's financials in terms Maker Investing
of per-share values in order to calculate how 11. Consider Rule
much the proportional share of the business Breakers and Small
is worth. Caps
If you own one share of Wal-Mart stock, Issues
you, along with members of founder Sam
Walton's family, own the company. True, 13. Get Fully Foolish
the Walton family owns more of it than you
do. A lot more. But your share still
counts. When important decisions
are to be made, the company will
http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/stepnine.htm (1 of 7) [06-11-1999 7:52:54 PM]

send you a ballot and solicit your vote. And

every time a shopper buys a snorkel, a
stereo, or a set of towels at Wal-Mart, a tiny
fraction of the profit that purchase generates
is yours. A very, very tiny fraction. But
don't let that get you down -- there are a lot
of Wal-Mart shoppers.
The fate of each share of stock is tied
inextricably with the fortune of the
underlying business, and the market's
perception of the future prospects for that
business.
It All Boils Down to Price and

Quality
As you learn more about how to study
companies, you'll run across many different
measures and tools that investors use in their
evaluation. These tools might include P/E
ratios, return-on-equity, cash-flow
valuations, and so on. At first, you might let
all the valuation tools in your mind end up
in
a big
clutter.
You'd You'll run
do well
to try
across many
and sort different
them
into two measures and
categories
eventually,
tools that
though: investors use
price
and in their
quality.
Here's
evaluation.
why:
Bearing in mind that there are really only
three kinds of people in the world: those
who can count and those who can't, there are
three main questions you need to answer
before you decide whether to invest in a
company:
1) Is this a strong and growing high-quality

company?
2) Is the company's stock priced attractively
right now?
(We stole the above joke from Warren
Buffett's 1998 annual letter to the Berkshire
Hathaway shareholders. At some point, if
you really want an education in evaluating
businesses, instead of going to business
school just read Mr. Buffett's collection of
annual letters.)
If you don't make a point of addressing

these questions (however many there were),
you might end up buying grossly overvalued
shares of a wonderful company or you
might snap up shares of a business that's
about to be cut in half at what seems like a
bargain price.
Quality
There are a number of ways that you can
zero in on a company's quality. Is it
debt-free or up to its ears in interest
payments? Does the firm have a lot of cash?
Is it generating a lot of cash and spending
that money efficiently? Are sales and
earnings growing at an admirable clip? Are
gross, operating, and net profit margins
growing, as well? Is the management smart
and executing well? Is the company well
positioned to beat out competitors? Does the
company have a brand name that is widely
known and admired?
These are just some of the many measures
you can take when you're evaluating a
company's quality.
Price
When evaluating a company's price, you
shouldn't be interested in how many dollars
one share costs -- you need to measure the
per share cost of a stock against something.
Investors typically take a number of
measures and compare them to the firm's
earnings. The price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio,
for example, compares a company's stock
price to its earnings per share. Some

companies aren't properly valued based on

their earnings though (because there may
not be any), and often the price-to-sales
ratio is used. Another earnings-based ratio is
the Fool Ratio, or PEG, which compares the
P/E ratio to the company's earnings growth
rate.
You can also evaluate price by estimating
the company's earnings for all the years
ahead and then discounting them to their
present value. A company's stock price is
essentially a reflection of all its expected
future earnings, discounted at an appropriate
rate. If your calculations suggest the total
discounted earnings of a company will
result in a valuation of $80 per share, and
the stock is currently trading for $60 per
share, you're possibly looking at a real
bargain.
Value
Once you have a handle on a company's
quality and its price, you can begin to make
a judgment on what the intrinsic value of the
company should be. Before we go any
further, know that there are many different
investing styles, and many different ways to
value stocks. Some investors focus
primarily on finding undervalued
companies, paying close attention to a
stock's price. Others do consider price, but
focus more on the quality of the business.
Both of these are Foolish approaches.
What is un-Foolish is simply to look for
rapidly growing companies, regardless of
price or quality. Or to only examine charts
of a stock's price movements and its volume
in trading.
Learning More
Success in analyzing individual businesses
and ultimately investing in them is about
buying what you understand the best and
constantly refining and adding to your
knowledge about companies.

Here are some steps you can take to broaden

your range of understanding:
● Try out the company's product(s) or
service(s). Be familiar with how they
are improving and what the demand
for them is.
● Read up on the company. Find books

and magazine and newspaper articles
on it.
● Check out our message boards for any

company you're interested in. Online,
you can and should ask questions of
fellow Fools. In particular, check out
the Frequently Asked Questions
(FAQ) post that is linked at the
bottom of many individual company
message board posts.
● Figure out what the company's

business model is. How is it making
money? How is it organized? How
might the model change in the years
ahead? On what assumptions is the
model based?
● Examine the company's competitive

environment. What are its
competitors up to? Is the company
likely to fend off attacks? What
advantages does the company have
over the competition? Is it at any
disadvantage? How is the industry
changing and what challenges does it
face?
● Think about the company's risks. In

SEC filings, the company's
management will have explained
some risks that they see.
● Crunch a bunch of numbers. See just

how quickly sales are growing. See
what the firm's debt-to-equity ratio is.
Determine what its gross margins are.

● Talk to people in the business, such as

company employees, suppliers,
people in stores that sell the
company's products, customers of the
company, people familiar with
competitor companies, and so on. See
how they perceive the industry and
where it's headed. See what they think
of the company you're studying and
its future prospects.
That may seem like a lot to put together --
but remember, that's what this forum is all
about, helping Fools understand and put it
all together. To see a portfolio that is put
together by closely studying and evaluating
businesses before it invests in them, click
forward to Step 10: Understand Rule Maker
Investing.
Next Step: Understand Rule Maker
Investing >>
1. What is Ask a
Foolishness Foolish
Finances Investing
Basics |
3. Setting
Register |
Expectations
Personal
Drips Desk
6. Open a
Discount Free Guide
Brokerage
If you register
Account
for The Motley
Approach receive a
printed guide of
Financial Investing
of all, the guide
Rule Maker
Investing Toolbox
11. Consider
Rule

Breakers Email
and Small Format
this to for
Caps a Printing
12. Advanced Friend
Investing
Issues
13. Get Fully
Foolish

Fool.com: The 13 Steps to Investing Foolishly -- Step Ten
FoolMart
Quick Find

Step 10: Understand Toolbox
Rule Maker Investing ● Email this to a Friend

"The Rule Maker solution buys
stalwart businesses and relies
only on simple numerics,
common-sense logic, and your The 13 Steps
patience. It's an investment
model that is as convenient as a
mutual fund, but which offers 2. Settle Your Finances
above-average performance 3. Setting Expectations
and lower expense." -- The 4. Index Funds
Motley Fool's Rule Breakers, 5. All About Drips
Rule Makers
6. Open a Discount
The Rule Maker investing philosophy Brokerage Account
begins with the same premise that all 7. Dow Approach
Foolish investment philosophies do: 8. Read Financial Info
You are the best manager for your money 9. Evaluating

and the Wall Street Wise telling you that you Businesses
don't have the time or the skills to manage 10. Understand Rule
your money to market-beating returns are Maker Investing
dead wrong. 11. Consider Rule
Breakers and Small
If you go about making your selections Caps
properly, in short order you can acquire a
portfolio of 8-15 giant companies that are
Issues
out there Making the Rules in our economy.
Once having bought these Rule Makers, you 13. Get Fully Foolish
can pull a virtual Rip Van Winkle,
shutting your investing eyes for a quick
ten-year snooze, and then wake up to
outstanding returns.
http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/stepten.htm (1 of 6) [06-11-1999 7:53:43 PM]

The
criteria
for
When
identifying compared with
Rule
Makers industry peers,
begin
with
the Rule
looking Maker
for the
No. 1 candidate
brand
name in
should clearly
an be at the head
industry.
And not of the class.
just the
No. 1
brand here in America -- we're talking King
of the World brands. What companies come
to mind when you think of soda, razor
blades, diamond rings, and
microprocessors? We suspect that most
people will name Coke, Gillette, Tiffany,
and Intel.
Repeat mass-market purchases also
characterize Rule Maker companies. People
who aren't NBA stars don't buy many
automobiles in a year, so General Motors is
out. (Unless of course the NBA
expands to include 6000 or 7000
teams. And even then, we're not
sure General Motors is the brand
that'll find multiple purchases each year.)
Think instead of things you routinely use,
either because you like to or you have to:
soda, casual clothing, blood-pressure pills,
shampoo. Think Coca-Cola, Gap, Merck,
and Procter & Gamble.
When crunching financial numbers looking
for possible Rule Makers, you need to check
a few measures. Start with strong historical
performance from the company. If you're
making a ten-year commitment to buy and
hold just a few companies, you'd like to
make sure that they are the kind of
companies that have richly rewarded their
owners in the past. Check out the ten-year

record of your companies to make sure

they're worthy of your attention. Click here
for some Fool ten-year price graphs of
Coca-Cola, Gap, and Pfizer.
The Numbers
Rule Makers sport gross margins (gross
profits divided by revenues) above 50%, net
margins (net income divided by revenues)
topping 7%, and sales growing faster than
10% per year. Some companies that pass
muster on these counts include drugmaker
Schering-Plough (gross margins of roughly
80%), Internet infrastructure builder Cisco
Systems (net margins around 16%), and the
Gap (sales growth topping 16%). The
preceding terms are covered in more detail
by clicking here.
Cash Is King
These are companies that have been around
for a while and have been making loads o'
cash throughout that time. Therefore, by
now they should have a nice big vault of it,
with which they can expand their own
operations in the future, not having to
borrow money from anybody else. You can
find how fat a company's coffers are by
reading the balance sheet. Looking for a low
flow ratio is a special metric of Rule Maker
investing. The "flowie" reveals whether a
company is managing cash flow effectively
by demanding payment from its customers
quickly (an indication of strength), and
paying its obligations slowly.
Even more important than how a company
fares on the above measures is the direction
it's heading. Since a stock's price will
always be tied to how the market views a
company's future prospects,
you want the present to be better than the
past, with indications that such a trend will
be growing even stronger. Look for rising
margins, a company that is buying back its
own shares, and cash continuing to pile up.
Think about the $19 billion or so that
Microsoft currently has in its bank account.

When
compared
Rule Maker with
investments industry
peers,
are meant to the Rule
Maker
be long-term candidate
ones -- for the should
clearly
most part, you be at the
head of
should be able the
class.
to leave your
Rule
money Maker
invested for a investments
are
decade or meant to
be
longer. long-term
ones.
The idea
is that once you identify and invest in these
powerful companies, you should, for the
most part, be able to leave your money
invested for a decade or longer. This means
you won't be making many buy and sell
decisions and won't be forking over capital
gains taxes to Uncle Sam.
With deep-discount brokers offering trades
for as low as $7 to $10, a Fool could buy ten
Rule Maker stocks for a total fee of $100,
starting with an initial investment between
$5,000 and $10,000. This would meet the
Foolish aim of keeping commission costs
below 2% ($100/$5000 = 2%).
There's a lot more involved in identifying
and investing in Rule Makers (hey, there's
half a book devoted to it), but these are
some of the core principles. This
tip-of-the-iceberg treatment ought to give
you an idea of whether this might be a
strategy to which you want to devote a little
more time. (Here's a tiny little prod though,
the Rule Maker Portfolio is beating the
market since its inception).

You can learn more about the specifics of

the approach as Fools around the globe
discuss the Rule Maker strategy 24 hours a
day on the Rule Maker Strategy message
board. To read about companies you think
might be Rule Makers, go to the Rule Maker
Companies message board, and try asking
your first questions on the Rule Maker
Beginners message board.
The Rule Maker strategy is a relatively

conservative one since it invests only in
proven winners. If you're a more advanced
investor, are looking for a little bit more of a
thrill in your investing, and you're ready to
take on a bit more risk with the possibility
of a bit more reward, Step 11 of Foolish
Investing looks at the companies that are
Breaking the Rules...
Next Step: Consider Rule Breakers and Small
Caps >>
1. What is Ask a
Foolishness Foolish
Finances Investing
Basics |
3. Setting
Register |
Expectations
Personal
Drips Desk
6. Open a
Discount Free Guide
Brokerage
If you register
Account
for The Motley
Approach receive a
printed guide of
Financial Investing
of all, the guide
Rule Maker
Investing Toolbox
11. Consider

Rule Email
Breakers Format
this to for
Caps Friend
12. Advanced
Investing
Issues
13. Get Fully
Foolish

Fool.com: The 13 Steps to Investing Foolishly -- Step Eleven
FoolMart
Quick Find

Step 11: Consider Toolbox
Rule Breakers and ● Email this to a Friend

Small Caps
"Rule Breakers provide
investors with the most
dynamically high returns The 13 Steps
achievable on the public 1. What is Foolishness
markets -- period.... Rule 2. Settle Your Finances
Breakers provide inspiration 3. Setting Expectations
and guidance to all business
4. Index Funds
people, be they managers,
planners, or executors. Rule 5. All About Drips
Breaking is capitalism's special 6. Open a Discount
sauce, its tastiest and most Brokerage Account
necessary condiment." -- The 7. Dow Approach
Motley Fool's Rule Breakers, 8. Read Financial Info
Rule Makers
9. Evaluating
*Warning: Rule Breakers are for the Businesses
most bold and daring of investors. 10. Understand Rule
Those who are brand new to all this Maker Investing
investing stuff should understand the 11. Consider Rule
risks involved.* Breakers and Small
Caps
Now that we've captured your attention with
the big bold lettering -- let us explain a bit 12. Advanced Investing
Issues
more about the types of companies that end
up being called Rule Breakers, and what the 13. Get Fully Foolish
risks and rewards of investing in them can
be.
Investing in Rule Breakers involves
consciously taking on lots of risk, with the
http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/stepeleven.htm (1 of 8) [06-11-1999 7:54:13 PM]

possibility of
seeing
the
highest We do think
rewards
available
we can offer
in the some useful
markets.
Rule tips on how to
Breaker
stocks
find
should outperforming
make up
only a stocks from
part of
any
the field of the
portfolio thousands of
-- and
investors small
are
warned company
that they
should
stocks that are
be out there.
prepared
to lose
the money they invest in these companies.
Well, that's not very encouraging, is it?
Perhaps a review of the performance of our
real-money Rule-Breaker portfolio will help
though. It ended 1998 up a
mind-boggling 199%, compared to
the S&P 500's very respectable
growth of nearly 29%. In its
history (since August of 1994), the Portfolio
is up a bit more than 1,100% (as of Sept. 13,
1999). During the same go-go period, the
S&P 500 galloped ahead 194%.
We're the first to admit that we don't expect
these heady returns to repeat forever, and
that we'd be quite surprised to ever see a
year like 1998 come along again. But we do
think we can offer some useful tips on how
to find outperforming stocks from the field
of the thousands of small company stocks
that are out there. Here, in very brief form,
are the six main characteristics of Rule
Breaker companies.

1. The company should be a top dog and

a first mover in an important,
emerging field. In other words, being
top dog in the left-handed scissors
industry isn't enough. The left-handed
scissors industry just isn't really
"emerging" -- ya know? It's pretty
mature -- and it ain't going anywhere
in the near or distant future.
Electronic commerce, though, now
there's something that's emerging, and
Amazon.com is the top dog and first
mover in that category. Similarly, in
direct retailing of computers, Dell
Computer was a Rule Breaker.
Starbucks has been the first-mover
and top dog in the gourmet coffee
field for a while.
2. The company needs to demonstrate

sustainable advantage gained through
business momentum, patent
protection, visionary leadership, or
inept competitors. Examples of these
include Wal-Mart (with business
momentum that featured net income
gains of 25% during much of the
1980s), Amgen (enjoying patent
protection of its drug formulas for
many years), and Microsoft (with
visionary leadership that benefited
from Apple Computer's regrettable
decision not to license its
technology).
3. The market should have recognized a

Rule Breaker's promise by rewarding
it with strong price appreciation. A
good indication of this is a relative
strength rating of 90 or above. (You
can check up on company relative
strength ratings in the Investor's
Business Daily newspaper.)
4. Look for good management and

strong backing. Like the steel
company Nucor (yes, steel!), led by
Ken Iverson, which became a
world-class powerhouse by

revolutionizing steel production

processes. Or Scott Cook, whose
singular focus on serving customers
drove the success of personal finance
software giant Intuit. Also consider
the "backing," or supporters of a
company. eBay was backed by
Starbucks and Sun Microsystems
executives.
5. Also important is having a strong

consumer brand. Again consider
Starbucks, and how its name
recognition is so much stronger than
competitors such as… um, like… (get
the point?).
6. We also consider it a good sign when

the financial media, not seeing the big
picture, calls a company overvalued.
(Perhaps the greatest single contrary
indicator is Barron's lead editorialist.
When Barron's is asking about
America Online: "Short on Value?"
Good. When Barron's leads with
"Sell now!" -- excellent.)
As with Rule Makers, the best place to
analyze whether a company that you're
interested in qualifies as a Rule Breaker is
on the Rule Breaker message board, where
Fools gather 24 hours a day to trade ideas.
To learn more and get more comfortable
with Rule Breakers, read the first chapter of
The Motley Fool's Rule Breakers, Rule
Makers, and the daily portfolio recaps.
Another good place to search for ideas is in
our Internet Report. Rule Breakers are by no
means limited to the Internet stocks, but
these companies are often known for
breaking the rules -- and some may present
terrific investment opportunities for Rule
Breaker investors.
If you're thinking of jumping onto the Rule
Breaker bandwagon, we recommend making
these stocks just a part of your overall
investment strategy. A completely nutritious
Foolish mix might include Dow approach
stocks, a bunch of Rule Maker stocks, and a

few Rule Breakers thrown in to spice things

up.
The Beauty of Small-Cap

Investing
Whether or not you decide to look for
emerging companies the Rule Breaker way,
you should give serious consideration to
including a number of small-cap companies
in your portfolio. Why do we advocate
small-cap investing? Well, there are a
number of reasons, but perhaps the biggest
one is that it gives the individual investor a
chance to beat the Wise to the punch.
You see, due to the size of most mutual
funds, the way they are set up, and a pesky
SEC regulation, fund managers have a hard
time establishing any kind of
meaningful
position
in The fact that
small-caps.
In order
the big boys
to buy a can't play
position
large these
enough
to make
small-cap
a reindeer
difference
to their games is a
fund's
performance,
great asset to
they the individual
have to
pick up investor.
at least
10% or
20% of a small-cap (which they're
frequently restricted from doing, by their
own guidelines). Before they can do that,
though, they have to file with the SEC. That
is, if they haven't already tipped their hand
to the market and inflated the previously
attractive price by buying the first 5% of the
company.
The fact that the big boys can't play these

small-cap reindeer games is a great asset to

the individual investor who has the ability to
spot promising companies and get in before
the institutions do. That's because when
institutions, like mutual funds, pension
funds, and that ilk do get in, they'll do so in
a big way, buying many shares and pushing
up the share price with their demand.
Also, lots of small-caps are "closely held" --
that is, the management owns a sizable
percentage of the company. Since most of
their potential for wealth is tied to the stock,
you can bet that they'll be working very hard
to get the stock price up.
The final (and probably the best) reason to
buy small-cap growth companies is because
they grow -- sometimes rather quickly.
Small companies are in a much better
position than their larger brethren to expand
their business. And rapidly multiplying
earnings often translate into quick growth in
share price.
The Downside of Small-Caps

Small-caps aren't for everyone, though. You
should know your way around a balance
sheet, and a few laps around the investing
block doesn't hurt, either. Novices should
steer clear for a while. You wouldn't go up
in a lunar orbiter without prior training, nor
should you try small-cap investing until
you've cut your teeth on some large- and
mid-cap issues.
You should also stay away from small-caps
(all stocks, really) if you're ponying up your
mortgage payment (or any other
much-needed funds) to make the purchase.
The money you invest in small-caps should
be money you can afford to lose.
Time is another dissuading factor, or rather,
the lack of it is. Finding good small-caps is
a lot of work, and takes even more attention
after you've made your purchase. If you
don't have the time, energy, or inclination to
keep up with the news on your portfolio,
you're better off in the Dow Investing

Strategy or an index fund.

The last reason to stay away from small-cap
growth stocks is if you have a natural
aversion to risk. Small-caps are more
volatile than large-caps. If the mere thought
of a 5% down day gives you an ulcer, you're
better off saving your stomach. Everyone
has her own risk tolerance, and there's no
reason why you should make any
investment that makes you feel
uncomfortable. There are some great Dow
strategies that will give you respectable
returns and keep you off the acid-blockers.
Now that you've got small caps under your
belt, proceed to Step 12, where even more
advanced investing issues are confronted.
Next Step: Advanced Investing Issues >>

Basics | Register |
5. All About Drips
Brokerage Account
of the 13 Steps to
Maker Investing
Breakers and Small
Caps Email this
Format for
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Issues


Fool.com: The 13 Steps to Investing Foolishly -- Step Twelve
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Step 12: Advanced Toolbox
Investing Issues ● Email this to a Friend

Top Five Admissions
We'll Never Hear From
any Investment Guru on
T.V. The 13 Steps
5. I have no idea why 1. What is Foolishness
technical analysis 2. Settle Your Finances
should explain 3. Setting Expectations
anything.
4. Index Funds
4. I don't understand 5. All About Drips
the difference
6. Open a Discount
between a rating of
Brokerage Account
'outperform' vs.
'accumulate' either. 7. Dow Approach
3. Of course indexing
beats trying to time 9. Evaluating
the market. But that Businesses
won't make for a 10. Understand Rule
very good Maker Investing
interview. 11. Consider Rule
Breakers and Small
2. I'm making most of
Caps
this stuff up as I go
along. 12. Advanced Investing
Issues
1. Our brokerage 13. Get Fully Foolish
makes money the
old-fashioned way.
We charge
outrageous fees
http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/steptwelve.htm (1 of 11) [06-11-1999 7:54:40 PM]

--Motley Fool 2000 Calendar
Derivatives, shorting against the box,

ascending trend channels, 50-day moving
averages, Bollinger bands… ohmigosh!
Yes, there are a heck of a lot of high-level,
complicated topics in investing, which,
fortunately for you, are basically nonsense.
You can let out a big sigh of relief, because
in this step we won't be covering or going
into excruciating detail about many
of these "advanced" topics.
Instead, we'll highlight a few
market complexities, some that are
worth running away from (options, day
trading) others that provide a useful chuckle
(technical analysis), and a couple that you
might consider learning more about and
perhaps employing (margin and shorting).
Options
They're mysterious, alluring, and full of
danger. We're speaking not of spies or
supermodels, but of "calls" and "puts."
These are options, which we generally steer
clear of. We'll soon explain why, but first
let's review how they work.
Calls give you the right to buy a certain
number of shares of stock at a certain price,
by a certain date -- usually within a few
months. Puts do the opposite, giving you the
right to sell.
Imagine that you're excited about Legal
Beagles (ticker: WOOFF), a new company
providing legal advice for house pets.
Shares are currently trading for about $75
each and you expect big things. After
researching the company's financial merits,
you might decide to buy some shares. Or --
you could buy options on it.
Let's say you buy a May $80 call option.
You now have the right to buy 100 shares of
WOOFF for $80 per share until the third
week of May. (And you've just paid
$500, or $5 per share, for that right.) If by
late May WOOFF has indeed risen and is at

$95 per
share,
Day traders your
aren't plan has
worked
participating in well.
You'll
the growth of exercise
the American the
option,
economy -- paying
$80 per
they're betting share
instead
that they're of $95.
better If you
turn
guessers than around
and sell
the next guy. those
shares,
you've
made a $15 per share profit, right? Not
quite. Remember to subtract the $5 option
price, and to consider the broker
commission and the short-term tax bite.
That might still not seem so bad, but realize
that most options expire worthless. The
underlying stocks might move in the
expected direction, but they won't always do
so within the typical option's limited time
frame. If WOOFF doesn't advance beyond
$80 per share by the third week of May,
you're out of luck and have just wasted the
$500 you paid for the option. WOOFF
might soar to $120 in the first week of June,
but that's too late for you. If you'd simply
bought stock in this company that you
believed in, rather than options, you'd own
something valuable and lasting.
So why do people like options? Because of
leverage. Instead of spending your money
buying a few actual shares of stock, that
same money will buy you many more
options. Instead of paying $7,500 for 100
shares of WOOFF, you could have paid
only $500 for the option to buy 100. Options
permit you to "establish a position" in a

stock at a much lower cost. Just remember

that the position is virtually indefinite if
you've bought the stock and very temporary
if you buy the option.
Another way that options are used is to
protect positions. Let's say you've bought
actual shares of WOOFF at $75 per share. If
you're afraid that the price might drop
suddenly, you could invest in put options
that will give you the (again, temporary)
right to sell WOOFF at a certain price, no
matter what it's trading at. That way, you
have some downside protection. Of course,
we might wonder why you're hanging onto a
stock that you feel so ambivalent about. And
we notice that you'll have to keep buying
more puts as each one expires. Those
purchases add up and eat into whatever
profit you expect to make on WOOFF.
Beginning investors shouldn't even think of
gambling with options, and Foolish veteran
investors would probably want to steer clear
as well. With options, you're really just
buying time and betting on short-term
moves.
Day Trading
We think the best way to accumulate wealth
is to buy stock in great businesses and hold
on for decades. But this is easier said than
done. When the stock market is surging or
plunging, or when you learn of one exciting
company after another, it can be hard to
refrain from actively buying or selling.
The buy-and-hold message is further
challenged by the likes of "day traders,"
who believe they can wring extra profit
following the stock market by the hour.
You've probably seen segments on day
traders on your nightly news. It's become a
fad, as more and more people forego regular
9-to-5 jobs and instead spend that time with
their eyes glued to computer monitors (and
we all know how painful that can be),
buying thousands of dollars of stock at a
time, holding it for a few hours (or
minutes!), and then selling. Sheesh.

People "investing" like this aren't really

investing. They're gambling. They're not
holding on to pieces of strong companies,
accumulating wealth as the companies
grow. They're making bets that they can
outthink others. They aren't participating in
the growth of the American economy --
they're betting that they're better guessers
than the next guy.
You might think to yourself, "That's fine. I
don't day trade. I week trade or month
trade." Well, consider the research of Brad
Barber and Terrance Odean, professors at
the University of California at Davis
business school. They recently hammered
another nail into the frequent-trading coffin,
demonstrating that individual investors who
buy and hold generally outperform those
who trade frequently.
Barber and Odean studied the trading of
more than 60,000 households with accounts
at a major discount brokerage from 1991
through 1996. They learned that the average
household had a net annualized geometric
mean return of about 15.3%, compared with
a market gain of 17.1%. Bummer. Even
worse, the fifth of the households that traded
most often realized merely a 10% yearly
gain.
The professors concluded that these folks
were losing to the market because they were
trading too much. The average household
turned over, or "churned," 80% of its stock
portfolio each year. This means that a
portfolio valued at $10,000 had $8,000
worth of stocks bought and sold during the
year. We're not talking small-potatoes
expenses here, as things like commissions
and capital gains taxes will take significant
bites out of these investments.
The lesson is clear: Investors who think of
themselves as committed, long-term owners
of businesses are much more likely to
generate enviable returns than are the active
traders who try to time the market by
rapidly moving in and out of stocks.

In Barber and Odean's own words,

"[Frequent] trading is hazardous to your
wealth."
Technical Analysis
"Beware of technical analysis, my son! The
jaws that bite, the claws that catch!" Had
Lewis Carroll been an investing aficionado,
he might have cautioned investors about
technical analysis, instead of the
Jabberwock and Jubjub bird. Or, heck, he
might have just broken down in a fit of
laughter. (Which, from what we've heard
about his pharmacological habits, he may
have been doing quite a bit on his own
time.)
There are two major camps of investing.
Technical analysis dwells on charts of stock
price movements and trading volume.
Fundamental analysis, on the other hand,
focuses on the value of companies, studying
such things as a firm's business, earnings,
and competition. While investors from the
fundamental school (Fools!) want to
understand a business from the inside out,
technicians mostly remain on the outside,
observing how the stock behaves in the
market.
Technicians have defined many patterns in
the charts they study, imbuing them with
much significance. There's a
head-and-shoulders pattern and a
cup-and-handle pattern. The patterns they
see do exist, but they don't necessarily mean
anything. Imagine someone discovering that
on presidential election days, whenever the
skies above Fresno were cloudy, Republican
candidates won. Like many patterns, this
would be a randomly occurring one, a
coincidence. For you to bet any of your
hard-won savings on this would, we think,
be nothing more than gambling.
Investors who use technical analysis focus
on the psychology of the market,
scrutinizing investor behavior. They try to
determine where the big, institutional
money is going so they can put their cash in

the same places. Imagine Warren Buffett

trying to follow this short-attention-span
crowd instead of seeking, buying, and
holding great companies for the long term.
Imagine the taxes and commissions. Yeesh.
It's amazing to think that technicians might
study a stock chart, see a particular pattern,
determine that the stock is "breaking
resistance," and then buy shares. All this
would be done without understanding what
the company does or what its prospects and
circumstances are.
Always focus on the fundamentals, Fool. If
you find a company quietly selling more and
more prefab igloos, increasing its profit
margins and earnings and going unnoticed
by Wall Street, consider snapping up shares.
Don't worry about what others are doing.
The true value of great companies is
eventually recognized.
Margin
Buying on margin means you're borrowing
money from your brokerage firm and using
it to buy stocks. It's attractive because you
can turn a profit using money that you don't
even have. For that privilege, you're paying
interest to the brokerage, just as with any
other loan. (Actually, it's a lot easier to open
a margin account than to apply for a bank
loan.) If the market turns against you, you
either sell for a loss -- plus interest costs --
or hold on until the market picks up, paying
interest all the while.
Investing with margin isn't an automatic
no-no, in our opinion. It should
just be used with extreme moderation and
caution. While some people will max out on
margin, borrowing 50% of the value of their
portfolio, we think that's far too risky, and
something that any investor is better off
avoiding.
We suggest that if you already have been
investing for a few years and decide to use
margin, you limit yourself to borrowing no
more than 20% of your portfolio's value. If

you do
so and
you have Investing with
$20,000
in your
margin isn't an
portfolio, automatic
you'll be
borrowing no-no, in our
$4,000
and
opinion. It
putting should just be
$24,000
to work used with
for you.
That's
extreme
called moderation
leverage.
A little and caution.
of it can
be a
useful and not-too-risky thing.
Think very carefully before you use margin,
though. If you're borrowing on margin and
paying 9% interest, you should be pretty
sure your stocks will appreciate more than
9%. If your margined securities fall below a
certain level, you'll receive a "margin call,"
requiring an infusion of additional cash.
Only experienced investors should use
margin. Indeed, many experienced investors
steer clear of it. As of this writing, none of
our real-money online portfolios have used
margin, and they're all doing just fine.
There is one reason why, even if you're not
interested in buying stocks on borrowed
money, you still might want to open a
margin account...
Shorting
If you've ever swaggered up to a craps table,
cleared away the necessary elbowroom, and
slapped down a few candy-colored chips on
the Pass Line, you were doing what most of
the people at a craps table do. You were
betting with the crowd.
Adjacent to the Pass Line, however, is a

cheaper strip of real estate (usually a vacant

lot) known as the "Don't Pass." It's virtually
the opposite bet; you win when the Pass
Line crowd loses, and lose when it wins.
Because you're betting against the roller and
most of the rest of the table, betting Don't
Pass is considered bad form; the craps
jargon for you is "wrong bettor." Many
other bettors will actually dislike you for
doing it, a feeling that will be reinforced
whenever you smile at dice rolls that make
them frown. If you read our message boards
for very long, you'll notice that short-sellers
aren't generally the most beloved of
contributors to this forum.
When you short a stock, you are banking on
that stock's price going down. You initiate
the process of shorting a stock by first
borrowing shares from a current
shareholder. This may sound difficult, but it
isn't; your discount broker does this for you
automatically. You then sell these borrowed
shares at the current market price. Then you
sit and wait, rooting the stock downward.
While you wait, you have to pay dividends
to the person who actually owns the stock
you borrowed (if the stock pays a dividend),
and, in some cases, you can also be subject
to paying margin interest to the brokerage,
just as if you had borrowed money.
When you're ready to cash out of your
investment -- whether for profit or for loss --
you close out the position by buying the
stock back at the then market price, so that
you can return your borrowed shares to the
lender -- another thing your broker does for
you automatically. That's it.
Shorting can offer a couple of potential
benefits for your portfolio. First, shorting
stock is a "hedge" -- you're taking
compensatory measures to counterbalance a
potentially plummeting stock market.
Outside of its status as a hedge, however,
selling stocks short is also a great way to
make money. Indeed, if you short the right
stocks, you can make money both ways...
long as your small stocks and the general
market rise AND short as your shorts

wither. It's tremendous fun! In fact, before

we turned Foolish enough to short stocks,
we didn't know just how much fun we were
missing.
Second, and more important, the shorting of
stocks is vastly underpracticed by the
investment community at large. From a
purely Foolish point of view, this makes
shorting stock even more compelling. That's
because Fools relish a good swim against
the tide. When most investors are trying to
figure out how many more half-point gains
they can squeeze out of their equities, we're
looking the other way. We're regarding
these same securities from the top down,
assessing how far each might fall. The
seldom-taken contrary view can be
lucrative.
A final note: Once in a blue moon, your
broker may be forced to return your shorted
shares to the anonymous lender, usually
because he wants to sell them. Forced into
doing so, you'll have to buy back the shares
prematurely -- whether you've made money
or not. This happens only with very small
companies that have few shares outstanding,
and is usually just a minor nuisance. Put the
money somewhere else.
When calculating returns, keep in mind that
all the normal steps of buying a.nd selling a
stock are still present, just reversed. Both
transactions still have a cost basis and a
sales price. But for stocks sold short, the
chronological order has been reversed.
Shorting stock is one approach that
separates the sophisticated investor from the
novice. Believing that selling shares short is
difficult and highly dangerous, some people
pay oodles of money to enter "hedge funds,"
mutual fund partnerships whose managers
short stock and go on margin. Having read
this far, you already know most of what
these "pros" know, and can do it yourself.
Finally, remember that when your "Pass
Line" friends find out you're shorting stocks,
they may start to regard you as Darth Vader.

So wear dark clothes, a low visor, breathe

loud, and milk it.
For more on the pros and cons of shorting,
check out our Shorting Stocks message
board and read our Dueling Fools debate on
it. You're almost home free, Fool. Now onto
the last step to investing Foolishly.
Next Step: Get Fully Foolish >>

Basics | Register |
5. All About Drips
Brokerage Account
of the 13 Steps to
Maker Investing
Breakers and Small
Caps Email this
Format for
Friend
Issues

Fool.com: The 13 Steps to Investing Foolishly -- Step Thirteen
FoolMart
Quick Find

Step 13: Get Fully Toolbox
Foolish ● Email this to a Friend

"Like many media mavens and
education experts, we believe
that while a picture may be
worth a thousand words, the The 13 Steps
right thousand words can
change the world. You want
that in technical terms? 2. Settle Your Finances
Text-based learning works 3. Setting Expectations
better than image-based 4. Index Funds
learning. Our online materials
5. All About Drips
-- the stuff that can help you
make money -- it's words, 6. Open a Discount
sentences and paragraphs, not Brokerage Account
pictures, not videos. And we're 7. Dow Approach
*not* sorry, because we think 8. Read Financial Info
that words work better." -- The
9. Evaluating
Motley Fool Investment Guide Businesses
Sure, you can read You Have More Than 10. Understand Rule
You Think, The Motley Fool Investment Maker Investing
Guide, and Rule Makers, Rule Breakers and 11. Consider Rule
be more prepared to invest in today's Breakers and Small
hurly-burly markets than nine out of ten Caps
people. But how can you become better able 12. Advanced Investing
to handle the twists and turns of individual Issues
stocks than 99 out of 100 investors? 13. Get Fully Foolish
We've got six words for you, friend, and
they ain't "Call market predictor
Elaine Garzarelli now." They are
"Check out the Motley Fool
online." To really take advantage
http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/stepthirteen.htm (1 of 7) [06-11-1999 7:55:07 PM]

of the
vast
breadth Take a quick
of
Foolishness,
tour of the
you need Fool!
to
discover
our online offerings. Online you will find
hundreds of additional educational and
interactive features, live online discussions,
and much, much, more.
Ah, but if it were just that easy, we would
not have dedicated a whole step to it, would
we? The problem is that with reams of new
material being added to this site everyday, a
new Fool can easily be confused by the
sprawling expanse online, wondering, "Just
what the heck have I gotten myself into?"
Throughout these 13 Steps we've provided
links to our site to help you get a grip on just
where you can find all of our content, and in
this step we'll do it again.
Get Registered for Free

When you register with the Motley Fool,
we'll provide you -- all for free of course --
daily updates on our content (if you desire),
the opportunity to post unlimited questions
(the more the better!) on our message
boards, the ability to set up your own online
portfolio, and the opportunity to win great
prizes.
Of course, you don't need to register to read
anything you'd like here, but participating in
the thousands of conversations that are
going on here everyday is, we believe, the
best free education you can receive on all
your personal finance matters.
And just what are the areas that we're
covering? The first stop, as we always like
to point out, is getting your personal
finances in tip-top shape before embarking
on any Foolish investing. In our Personal
Finance section, check out our in-depth
coverage on such matters as getting through

college, insurance, housing, future

employment, your bank, your IRA account,
your 401(k) account, taxes, investing for
your kids and your car.
Learn the Basics of Investing

After you're comfortable that you've got
your personal finance house on a sound
foundation, move over to The Fool's School
for an explanation of the Dow Dividend
Strategy, a tutorial on starting an investment
club, the lowdown on discount brokers and
mutual funds, and an explanation of
dividend reinvestment plans.
Don't stop there. Possibly one of the greatest

treasure-troves of investing basics can be
found in the How to Value Stocks area and
its sister area, Security Analysis, each
featuring articles on how to value
companies using earnings, cash flows,
revenues, and all sorts of stuff found on the
balance sheet.
Folly Online doesn't let up -- we also
provide a Help Desk, with everything from
Foolishly Answered Questions (FAQs)
about anything imaginable to direct links to
our non-stop Ask A Foolish Question
message board. Believe us, if you have any
questions after reading through these steps,
they can and will be answered online. If you
see any problems or anything you'd like
done more or done better, simply drop a
note at our Improve the Fool message board.
See What Happens When

These Basics Are Applied
Ideas are all well and good, but what
happens when they are put to the test in a
real-money portfolio? Plenty of investment
advisors are happy to tell you what they
think you should do. Very few are willing to
put their money where their mouth is and
explain exactly how to manage a portfolio
using a specified investment approach --

warts and all. Even fewer do so and whup

the market.
Our real-money portfolios, including the
Rule Breaker Portfolio, Rule Maker
Portfolio, Drip Portfolio, Boring Portfolio,
and Fool Four Portfolio, serve to illustrate
the process of imperfectly managing your
own money but still managing to better the
indices over the long haul. They might not
catch all the gains in a stock or always get
out at the top, but we can guarantee that the
results reflect all commissions and spreads
that an individual investor would be charged
-- and we do aim to beat the S&P 500
handily. These portfolios are designed to
answer that burning question, "How do
successful investors weigh the news and
rumors that surround their individual stocks
-- balancing risk with reward in their
selection process or just plain whiling the
days away?" Tune in whenever you're in the
mood to find out.
Generate Investment Ideas

So you have mastered the basics and have
seen what happens when they are applied.
Where do you go to get your own real live
investment ideas? Our Fool News is set up
to tell you what the news means for the
stock in order for you to get a sense of
whether or not this is an investment
opportunity. Not only will be you be able to
keep up with what is going on with the
companies you own, you will be able to get
a gander at the many other companies you
could own and review issues important to
individual investors.
For those who cannot tune in during the

week, we archive all of the week's Fool
News and features into Today's Features.
Bookmark it and you'll never miss your
favorite features again.
In other corners of the forum, we bring you

stock screens set to various Foolish criteria,
and Duels featuring the pros and cons of a

popular stock in a Foolish debate. We also

offer information on conference calls,
locating those hard-to-find replay numbers.
Talk With Others

The Motley Fool offers a plethora of
research resources. You have an integrated
package of Foolish resources available.
Among these many resources are earnings
estimates, press release databases, financial
information, and historical price charts for
every stock out there. Basically, the online
experience offers you a wide range of
resources that would have
taken
you days
to gather Believe us, if
offline,
while
you have any
you questions after
waited
for reading
various
investor
through these
information steps, they
packages,
press can and will be
kits, and
magazines
answered
to arrive online.
in your
mailbox.
Instead, you can now plug into great
resources like FreeEDGAR (a database of
companies' SEC filings) and immediately
get digging for all the cool facts and
numbers that will help you evaluate your
investments.
The interactive stuff comes in when you

venture to the Motley Fool's message
boards. On our thousands of message
boards, you can debate the value of publicly
traded stocks, talk over the merits of a new
approach to investing, get money-saving
tips, or just ask whatever question happens
to pop into your head. Try reading the Post

of the Day or the daily Fribble, examples of

some of the best material submitted by our
readership.
Your Fool
"My Fool" allows you to quickly view your
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Fool features all on one page, and to change
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Motley Fool. Check My Fool often to see
the new offerings. To set up yours, click
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Bringing it all Together

Investing is not just something you do once
-- it is an ongoing process that requires time
and attention. A solid, well-diversified
portfolio that moves beyond the Dow
Dividend Approach or other mechanical
strategies requires work... work that you can
do at the Motley Fool online, sharing with
other Fools as you go along. Whether it is in
our educational areas or out on the message
boards, you can hang out with Fools and
beat the pants off the Street.
Welcome, and Fool on!
1. What is Ask a Foolish

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7. Dow If you register for

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13 Steps To Invest Foolishly

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Fool.

com: The 13 Steps to Investing Foolishly

News Specials Strategies Personal Finance School Help

The 13 Steps to Investing Foolishly Today's Features

Invest Like a Fool? ● Email this to a Friend

First Step: What is Foolishness? >> 13. Get Fully Foolish

http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/13Steps.htm (1 of 2) [06-11-1999 7:48:03 PM]

The 13 Steps Related Links

1. What is Foolishness Ask a Foolish

News Specials Strategies Personal Finance School Help

http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/13Steps.htm (2 of 2) [06-11-1999 7:48:03 PM]

News Specials Strategies Personal Finance School Help

The 13 Steps to Investing Foolishly Today's Features

Foolishness? ● Email this to a Friend

http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/stepone.htm (1 of 7) [06-11-1999 7:49:02 PM]

the truth to the king or queen without having

http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/stepone.htm (2 of 7) [06-11-1999 7:49:02 PM]

"Fool," right? We think quite the opposite,

http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/stepone.htm (3 of 7) [06-11-1999 7:49:02 PM]

predict the stock market's future consistently

http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/stepone.htm (4 of 7) [06-11-1999 7:49:02 PM]

That has created a massive conflict of

The Wise have

http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/stepone.htm (5 of 7) [06-11-1999 7:49:02 PM]

benefit of good rather than evil, and that if

The 13 Steps Related Links

1. What is Foolishness Ask a Foolish

http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/stepone.htm (6 of 7) [06-11-1999 7:49:02 PM]

Caps Email this

News Specials Strategies Personal Finance School Help

http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/stepone.htm (7 of 7) [06-11-1999 7:49:02 PM]

News Specials Strategies Personal Finance School Help

The 13 Steps to Investing Foolishly Today's Features

Personal Finances ● Email this to a Friend

http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/steptwo.htm (1 of 6) [06-11-1999 7:49:26 PM]

Hey! Whoa there!

Erase Credit Card Debt

http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/steptwo.htm (2 of 6) [06-11-1999 7:49:26 PM]

that's almost four cards for every American

A Plan for Regular Saving

http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/steptwo.htm (3 of 6) [06-11-1999 7:49:26 PM]

Learn More About the Rest of

http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/steptwo.htm (4 of 6) [06-11-1999 7:49:26 PM]

In Fooldom, we can't say what should be of

We could go on and on. We often do in fact.

The 13 Steps Related Links

1. What is Foolishness Ask a Foolish

http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/steptwo.htm (5 of 6) [06-11-1999 7:49:26 PM]

News Specials Strategies Personal Finance School Help

http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/steptwo.htm (6 of 6) [06-11-1999 7:49:26 PM]

News Specials Strategies Personal Finance School Help

The 13 Steps to Investing Foolishly Today's Features

Expectations & Track ● Email this to a Friend

http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/stepthree.htm (1 of 5) [06-11-1999 7:49:51 PM]

Very simply, because nobody ever taught us

http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/stepthree.htm (3 of 5) [06-11-1999 7:49:51 PM]

If that sounds harsh -- absolutely, it's meant

http://www.fool.com/School/13Steps/stepthree.htm (4 of 5) [06-11-1999 7:49:51 PM]

The 13 Steps Related Links