Carburton Street, London -- Well, it's been a strange month for the Motley Fool Staff Investment Club. Our supposedly dull investment in Tesco(LSE: TSCO) has suddenly strolled into the limelight, with a gain of around 20% since our last minutes were published on 29 February. Of course, as long term investors, TMF SIC have no interest in this sort of short-term price movement. There has been no obvious change in the business fundamentals of any of our selections and that is what matters to us. Or you'd have thought so. I don't know if they've been putting something in our tea here at staff HQ, but we seem to have had an slight attack of Wisdom. All of a sudden, people seem to be discussing our recent stock selection decisions as though it won't be at least another five years before we find out who's right. There are a couple of threads on the Staff Investment Club discussion board which demonstrate this. Well, either that or we can't resist the temptation to wind each other up.
Anyway, enough of that. The real news of this month is our decision to make another purchase. As soon as Angus Scott-Brown (TMFLost) tells us which broker we should be using to do it, we will be puchasing around 6 billionths of the equity in Finnish mobile handset manufacturer Nokia(Nasdaq: NOK). This provides further evidence of an unusual effect which Stuart Watson (TMFTiger) has noticed. The more that you bang on to everyone about your recommended selection, the less likely anyone is to vote for it. Nokia comfortably won this month's vote despite Angus promoting it remotely from Thailand and it occupying less of everyone's time at the meeting than any of the other proposals. Food for thought.
With no further funds available, it looks as though our next meeting (on 5th April) will be dominated by administrative issues. In particular, we'll be discussing the difficulty which our decision to purchase a foreign stock appears to be causing. Having voted for it, we're obviously keen to go ahead. However, it is rather more tricky than we'd expected to find a broker offering the facility of a dollar-based investment club dealing account. Hopefully, we'll have a progress report available for the next meeting and we can decide what to do on the basis of that. In the meantime, we must hope that nothing happens to affect our investment decision.
Valuation as at 27 Mar 2000
Shares Date Bid Disposal Gain/
held bought price value (loss)
Tesco 544 24 Nov 99 205 1115.20 +11.1%
NXT 72 10 Dec 99 1865 1342.80 +36.1%
Marconi 107 13 Jan 00 859 919.13 -7.9%
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3377.13
Estimated commission (36.00)
Cash in the kitty 1209.88
Outstanding contributions 25.00
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Total pot 4576.01
Units issued 4234.95
Unit price 108.05p
Performance to date +8.1%
The Motley Fool Investment Club
MARCH MEETING MINUTES
Location: Fool office, meeting room 7th floor. Time: 13:00 hours Date: Wednesday 1st March 2K
In Attendance: Bruce Jackson (TMFGoogly); Nigel Roberts (TMFNigel); Nick Jenkins (TMFJenko); Stuart Watson (TMFTiger); Norma Boylan (TMFSymphony); Rob Davies (TMFEssex); Martin Wake (TMFSorted); Renée Rosen-Wakeford (TMFPurr); Keith Milner (TMFKeith); Phil Southgate (TMFPopper); James Carlisle (TMFJimmyC); Alan Oscroft (TMFAlan); Mandy Boylan (TMFTalisker); Ewan Wilson (TMFTheDogs).
Observers: John Hancock (TMFVenturian); Matt Christensen (TMFEuro).
(Who are these Fools?)
1. Apologies for absence
These were received from David Berger; Winfried Rauter; Angus Scott-Brown; George Row; Chris Spink and Adrian Gordon (or would have been if they'd all remembered).
2. Minutes of the previous meeting
These were approved. Jimmy C said he would fill in at the April meeting.
3. Matters arising
a) The chairman Mr Davies announced that he now had all the signatures for the ProShare membership form.
b) Toby Mason was removed from the register of members, having sold his share to Mandy Boylan; he was thanked for his contribution to the club (the Jaffa Cakes).
4. Treasurer's report
Stuart gave a full and detailed report on the progress of the club's investments to date. As at the close of play on 20 February the unit value was 104.19p. Everyone (except for Angus) has 174.86 units valued at a total of £182.19. Angus has 456.80 units worth £475.94. Once this month's subs were in there would be a massive £1,235 available for share purchase.
At this point -- six minutes into the meeting -- Nigel mentioned Baltimore(LSE: BLM). Bruce won the sweep for the nearest time.
5. Investments
Members were full of ideas following the non-purchase at the last meeting and no less than six shares bubbled forth for consideration by the club.
Nokia(NYSE: NOK) was proposed in absentia by Angus. This led to a discussion about Bluetooth and talking toasters. The Chairman will find out whether our current Broker can buy the shares for us.
BSkyB(LSE: BSY) was proposed by Phil, drawing on his media expertise. This led to a discussion of the Premier League.
Cable & Wireless(LSE: CW.) was proposed by Ewan. As is the custom when previously-recommended shares have gone up he reminded the club of the price increase. He promised worldwide Internet domination.
Autonomy was proposed again by James who also followed the established custom. Autonomy will also dominate the world in 15 years' time.
Tomkins(LSE: TOMK) was proposed by the Chairman -- who reckoned that with a price to earnings ratio of 6.3 and a dividend of 9.3% they were deeply undervalued. They have a proven management team and the value will come through.
Baltimore Technologies(LSE: BLM) was proposed again by Nigel, who might have reminded the club of the price rise since his first recommendation.
Members were referred to the club discussion board, and company discussion boards for further information and argument. The deadline for voting, using the Immensely Complex (for Martin) But Very Easy (for us) Voting System, was 6pm on Wednesday 8 March. This was later extended to Thursday 9th.
6. Any other business
a) Bruce reminded the club of the fun competition proposed at the last meeting, to get all 20 members involved in the joys of portfolio watching. Each member would pick one stock for the year. The best performing one after 12 months will get £25 from Bruce and the second best performer will get £10.
7. Date, time and location of next meeting
1pm on the first Wednesday of the month: 5 April next time. Meeting room 7th floor.
Fool USA