Hello Friends! I hope you all had a great weekend. I spent last night with a blue/yellow/green face playing Commander Data at a Murder Mystery Party. That was a first for me and I was glad last night when all of the paint came out in the shower!

Like always, I would like to remind you to PLEASE consult with an investment advisor before using any information on this site as I am an amateur and am not a professional investment advisor!

That being said, let's look back on the week of September 15, 2003, and see how my stock ideas have done. On September 15, 2003, I posted Aeropostale (ARO) at $27.25. It closed on October 31, 2003, at $30.85. This is a gain of $3.60 or 13.2%.

I posted two stocks on September 16, 2003: Lexar Media (LEXR) at $19.73, and Frisch's Restaurants (FRS) at $23.75. LEXR closed 10/31/03 at $22.91 for a gain of $3.18 or 16.1%. FRS closed Friday, 10/31/03 at $24.50 for a gain of $.75 or 3.2%.

Three stocks were mentioned on this site on 9/17/03 : Endo Pharmaceuticals (ENDP) at $20.99, TALX Corp. (TALX) at $26.25, and Gen-Probe (GPRO) at $62.90. ENDP closed Friday, 10/31/03 at $16.30 for a loss of ($4.69) or (22.3%). TALX closed 10/31/03 at $21.63 for a loss of ($4.62) or (17.6%). Finally GPRO closed 10/31/03 at $26.77 ($53.54 adjusted for a 2:1 stock split on 10/1/03). This is a loss of ($4.68) (based on adjusted purchase price of $31.45), representing a loss of (14.9%). Clearly, this was not our BEST day in picking stocks!

September 18, 2003, was a day when we selected Merge Tech. (MRGE) at $18.99. MRGE closed on 10/31/03 at $17.52 for a loss of ($1.47) or (7.7%).

Three stocks were selected on September 19, 2003: StrataSys (SSYS) at $50.04, Navigant Consulting (NCI) at $14.53, and IDX Systems (IDXC) at $26.20. On 10/31/03, SSYS closed at $47.60 for a loss of ($2.44) or (4.9%), NCI closed at $16.43 for a gain of $1.90 or 13.1%, and IDXC closed at $26.20, unchanged over the last six weeks.

The ten stocks had an average loss of (2.1%) during this period, certainly not an exciting performance. Keeping those 8% stops would have eliminated some of those losses keeping the overall performance above water....you can see the validity of using stops....but in this exercise, we examine how stocks actually performed...and this groups was less than exciting thus far!

We shall soon start looking at 6 month performance which will give us a better idea how we are doing over the intermediate term!

Thanks again for stopping by and have a great week.

Bob