In Focus

How 10 Skirts Wash Their Pants In Open Air

A couple of weeks ago I wrote an article answering our most frequently asked questions. Since the book has been released, we've been getting a whole new set of questions. There has been much more focus on the performance of our stock portfolio than on what the Chicks are really about. Bottom line, we aren't only about the bottom line. I regret that the subtitle of the book is "How 10 Skirts Beat the Pants Off Wall Street and How You Can Too!" What can I say? It was my first book, and I didn't have much pull, so I couldn't insist they call it "How 10 Skirts Got Up Enough Guts to Invest In The Stock Market and How You Can Too!" That would have truly reflected what the Chicks are all about.

Hindsight is 20/20.

Our portfolio went from beating the pants to losing our skirts. I'm buck-naked as I stand before you and profess, "Our skirts were taken to the cleaners. Talk to me when I get them back."

In the past 12 months, the S&P 500 is 20% off its highs. The Nasdaq has dropped more than 52% from its high, and the Dow has dropped more than 2%. People haven't just been losing their pants; they're losing their shirts, their suits, and their ties, right down to their stinky socks. It hasn't been just our skirts that were hemmed.

Let me show you what is happening with some Wall Street Portfolios. By Wall Street Portfolios I'm talking about the stocks that the "professionals" choose to put in their funds. By professionals, I mean people working in the financial field. These are the people with business degrees, that speak the lingo and get paid for knowing The Street inside and out. I just happened to be looking through Worth Magazine, the April 2001 issue. The stocks in the Worth portfolio were selected by Worth's editors as the best representatives of the evolving economy. They don't really put any money into it, but if they did, this is what they would buy. Here are the stocks in their portfolio and how they have done Year-to-Date compared to the S&P 500.

Hmmm... looks like somebody else's portfolio I know. Thank God we Chicks don't own Sycamore Networks.

Let's see how the Worth editors did versus the S & P 500 during the same time periods.

Those are the pants, And just for kicks, the Skirts...

How about comparing the Chick portfolio to the some of the largest mutual funds? Put our money where our skirts are, so to speak.

Those are the pants. We are the skirts. Our negative five percent return beats eight out of ten of the top ten mutual funds. (Deleted a sentence here.) I'm pulling my skirt back up and tightening up my silver chain belt.

But hold yer buckle there cowgirl, the point of the book isn't about beating the pants off anyone else's returns. It's about understanding your own. It's about getting enough guts to learn about the stock market and even knowing what a return is!

Now, tell me this: Let's say you just received your statement from your financial planner. "Your Guy" reads Worth magazine religiously and he has invested your retirement fund in all of the above companies. In the last year, your $10,000 has dwindled down to $5,560. You're freaking. You call him up and say SELL!! I'm losing my flippin' pants!! SELL, SELL, SELL!!

If you're a skirt, you do just the opposite. We Buy, Buy, Buy! There's a stitch of difference when you wear a skirt. We know exactly what we hold in our portfolio and why. We know what our company's balance sheet and income statement look like. We know who has a ton of cash to make it through any economic slowdown. We know which of our companies are still turning in respectable earnings. We know who is running our company and we believe in their management. We know how many pennies our company is making on every dollar! We also know that this past year technology stocks have been victims of public disfavor. We also know that if we are holding a good, strong company in the technology field, we have nothing to worry about. And here's the most exciting thing a Skirt knows; history tells us that in a year that follows a Federal Reserve rate cut, the technology sector rises anywhere from 26-45%!

That's why we buy. Of those companies above, we own EMC, Oracle, Nokia, Cisco, Sun Microsystems and Yahoo. In March, we re-invested in EMC. We originally purchased EMC at 60.00 per share. It dropped 50% to $30.00 a share. It had Sale written all over it! We bought $1500.00 more and in the past two months, the reinvestment is up 45%! A Skirt knows quality garments don't go on sale that often. Don't be surprised if we re-invest again in one of our other companies this coming June.

Being a Chick isn't all about beating the pants off Wall Street. It's about investing in Wall Street. It's about investing in good, strong companies that you know a lot about. It's about taking control of your financial future and not letting someone else make your investment decisions. It's about balancing the important things in life... your family, your friends, your health, your spirituality, and your future.

It's about wearing your skirt proud.