Beating the Street Read Online Free Page B

interviewed several top-producing brokers about the data bases and so-called screens that are now available. A screen is a computer-generated list of companies that share basic characteristics—for example, those that have raised dividends for 20 years in a row. This is very useful to investors who want to specialize in that kind of company.
    At Smith Barney, Albert Bernazati notes that his firm can provide8–10 pages of financial information on most of the 2,800 companies in the Smith Barney universe. Merrill Lynch can do screens on ten different variables, the Value Line Investment Survey has a “value screen,” and Charles Schwab has an impressive data service called “the Equalizer.” Yet none of these services is in great demand. Tom Reilly at Merrill Lynch reports that less than 5 percent of his customers take advantage of the stock screens. Jonathan Smith at Lehman Brothers says that the average retail investor does not take advantage of 90 percent of what Lehman can offer.
    In prior decades, when more people bought their own stocks, the stockbroker per se was a useful data base. Many old-fashioned brokers were students of a particular industry, or a particular handful of companies, and could help teach clients the ins and outs. Of course, one can go overboard in glorifying the old-fashioned broker as the Wall Street equivalent of the doctor who made house calls. This happy notion is contradicted by public opinion surveys that usually ranked the stockbroker slightly below the politican and the used-car salesman on the scale of popularity. Still, the bygone broker did more independent research than today’s version, who is more likely to rely on information generated in house by his or her own firm.
    Newfangled brokers have many things besides stocks to sell, including annuities, limited partnerships, tax shelters, insurance policies, CDs, bond funds, and stock funds. They must understand all of these “products” at least well enough to make the pitch. They have neither the time nor the inclination to track the utilities or the retailers or the auto sector, and since few clients are invested in individual stocks, there’s little demand for their stockpicking advice. Anyway, the broker’s biggest commissions are made elsewhere, on mutual funds, underwritings, and in the options game.
    With fewer brokers offering personal guidance to fewer stockpickers, and with a climate that encourages capricious speculation with “fun” money and an exaggerated reverence for professional skills, it’s no wonder that so many people conclude that picking their own stocks is hopeless. But don’t tell that to the students at St. Agnes.
THE ST. AGNES PORTFOLIO
    The fourteen stocks shown in Table 1-1 were the top picks of an energetic band of seventh-grade portfolio managers who attended the St. Agnes School in Arlington, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, in 1990. Their teacher and CEO, Joan Morrissey, was inspired to test the theory that you don’t need a Quotron or a Wharton M.B.A., or for that matter even a driver’s license, to excel in equities.
    You won’t find these results listed in a Lipper report or in Forbes , but an investment in the model St. Agnes portfolio produced a 70 percent gain over a two-year period, outperforming the S&P 500 composite, which gained 26 percent in the same time frame, by a whopping margin. In the process, St. Agnes also outperformed 99 percent of all equity mutual funds, whose managers are paid considerable sums for their expert selections, whereas the youngsters are happy to settle for a free breakfast with the teacher and a movie.
    Table 1-1. ST. AGNES PORTFOLIO

    I was made aware of this fine performance via the large scrapbook sent to my office, in which the seventh graders not only listed their top-rated selections, but drew pictures of each one. This leads me to Peter’s Principle #3:
    Never invest in any idea you