The Kokomo Tribune from Kokomo, Indiana • Page 6

6 Kofcomo (Ind.) Trlbun. Tuesday, Aug. 28, 1990 Bargains can still be found By John Cunnlff AP hyilnesg analyst NEW YORK (AP) Stock prices may be collating on fears of war and energy shortages, but the focus in some quarters remains on the long run. In interviews, three big investors with very different approaches and clientele shared a belief that investing must center on fundamentals. All saw opportunities developing.

n. 1 1 8 chairman of the National Association of Investors said he and his staff were reviewing a list of buying opportunities. Even if prices continue to fall, some stocks already are buys, he said. The NAIC, which runs a mutual fund and provides advice to the nation's largest aggregation of investment clubs, tends to invest no matter what short-term conditions might be. The credo of its clubs, for example, is to invest small amounts on a regular monthly basis in basically sound, well-managed companies.

Down markets are viewed as opportunities to obtain more shares for the money. NrVt 8 8 that philosophy, the NAIC's oldest member, the Mutual Investment Club of Detroit, has averaged better than 12 percent a year for 50 years which means it has doubled its portfolio value on average every six years. "The difficult task in a market like this is to convince people there are opportunities, but the opportunities are great," O'Hara said. Andrew Lanyi, managing director of the Lanyi Division of Ladenburg, Thalman is also a fundamental investor, but the stocks he chooses may not make the NAIC lists. Lanyi seeks small, highly profitable, undiscovered companies.

His better selections often appreciate three or four times even much more. To find such companies requires an enormous amount of effort, such as screening 30,000 companies to uncover eight possibilities. All will have the potential to grow into blue chips and be "discovered" by Wall Street. Shortly after the recent decline began, several of Lanyi's selections were off sharply. Asked what effect the declines were having on him, Lanyi said, "I have become more Lanyi said those who know company fundamentals products, sales-earnings potential, management can take the upsets.

It takes discipline and patience. Master those, he suggested, and you can keep eyeing the opportunity. John Wright, chairman of Wright Investors Service in Bridgeport, manages billions of dollars of blue-chip investment portfolios for institutions and clients, and advises many other clients around the world. How an Al robot makes up Its mind int.llio.no. (Al) robot s.nse» its surroundings When its Battery Chair In Avoid objects SOURCE: MITArtWcW InMHgtnot Lab Singing the blues not for this successful businessman Hugs can lead to trouble for some By Amanda Smith Scrlpps Howard News Service What's in a hug? A Baptist minister recently boasted: "I've gotten people in my congregation to hug each other.

But for Millard Fuller, founder of Habitat for Humanity, the outfit that uses "sweat equity" to build houses for poor people, hugs turned into trouble. Five women Habitat workers complained that he hugged them improperly. As a result, Fuller has gone into "near cx "I obviously was not sensitive enough," he says. Hugged them "improperly?" What is proper? In the old days men and women didn't hug each other at all, unless they were family. Men and women didn't build houses for poor people together, either We don't want to go back to distant formalities and separate activities.

Hugs, done right, are wonderful but we have to learn how. Millard Fuller and his women colleagues are not the only ones to have trouble with hugs. Times and manners are changing, and during this translation, ordinary people need extraordinary skills in reading each other's intentions. Some tips for honest hugs State a clearly non-sexual message from the beginning: "It's great to see you!" or "We won!" rather than "Come here, you gorgeous creature! Kathleen Keating, author of Hug Therapy," specifies we must have permission to hug. You can get permission by watching body language carefully or by asking directly, "May I have a hug?" If you're not sure if this person wants to be hugged, don't Pat, punch or poke, but don't rub.

The smallest amount of lateral movement changes the whole deal. A sliding hand makes a woman think a man is coming on sexually (or maybe checking to see if she has on a bra). Don't linger. Hugs between colleagues are firm, emphatic and short. Keep eye contact brief.

If yoif re a male, be careful about seeming possessive or condescending. If you are a fair amount taller than a woman, standing with an arm around her shoulders can make her seem like a "little girl" without your realizing it. your attitudes If you even sl '8htly regard this woman as a cute thing or a sex object, keep your hands to yourself. You may think you're jus being friendly, but your hands will give your true attitude away you're female, remember that your simple physical presence packs a sexual wallop for many men. If you're dressed in By Jennifer Kent Scrlpps Howard News Service CINCINNATI There are a pair of prints in Phil Cox's office here depicting Georgia sharecroppers toiling in a cotton field.

But parked in the garage of his 28-acre Lebanon, Ohio, home are a Rolls Royce and a Jaguar. Cox, founder and president of Cox Financial Services, said his mother and father, neither of whom went to high school, taught him and his siblings to be interested in life's "more pleasant results than the unpleasant tasks." Today Cox, whose Cincinnati- based firm has more than 10,000 clients and $85 million in assets under management, is enjoying some pleasant results. Cox, 43, began his company in Dayton, Ohio, when he was just 25, fresh out of Xavier University and determined not to let his fate fall into someone else's hands. He said it was difficult to convince potential clients they should trust someone so young, especially when that someone is black. "A lot of times people will ask three times if I'm Phil Cox.

I know I've lost business because I'm black," said Cox, the first black graduate of St. Xavier High School, which he attended on a scholarship. Cox counts only three black associates among his 30 employees and his client base in 92.7 percent white. "Black people tend to stay away from anything risk-oriented," he "That's why they don't own much. "I used to make calls just on black people.

Then I thought about why I was doing it, then I started calling on non-minorities just to get over the fear of doing As for his employees, Cox said there isn't much of a minority pool to choose from. And while more blacks are entering the field, he said, more are also failing. "Black people see themselves as blacks he said. "I see people as people first." Cox, who moved his home office from Dayton to Cincinnati in 1979, moving again to larger facilities in Blue Ash, Ohio. He maintains an office in Dayton and added one in Columbus five years ago The firm posted $2.5 million in commissions last year and had a gross sales volume of $45 million Cox used to work 60-hour weeks He now starts about 9:30 a.m.

and calls it a day before 5. He plans to retire from the business in another five years, pick up a teaching position and spend more time with wife, Jamie, and their five children, traveling and enjoying the family's horseback riding trails and tennis courts. Cox started on the speakers' circuit 10 years ago. He addresses various groups, mostly minorities, almost weekly on topics of success, motivation and self- discipline. "I tell them to quit singing the blues and take advantage of opportunities out there," he said.

"You should use the past and learn from it but not lean on it. It's OK to fail but you must take a swing. Many minorities are responsible for our plight by not getting out of everybody can be clean and have dignity." Cox, the son of a Ford Motor autoworker and a maid, is not a joiner. His absence from black organizations has not gone unnoticed he is solicited and recruited constantly. "It is not my style, especially organizations that express an image of poor, pitiful me," he said.

I have to watch who I'm affiliated with." the guest speaker at the NAACP's annual Freedom Fund Dinner in October, although he admits the group does not "represent what I believe in philosophically." Cox was reared with six brothers and sisters in a poor neighborhood. All of them have at least college educations and are successful today. Who wants a smart toilet? BySamVenable Scrlpps Howard News Service JVM UICOBCU 111 short shorts, glowing with health and accomplishment, and throw your arms around a man, he may respond to more than your carpentry skills. Be honest about your own motivations, especially if this man is older than you, or more powerful. Is there a tiny part of you than sees him as a possible conquest? Plavfair.

Men and women have had very little practice at seeing each other non-sexually. We will need patience in learning to read messages in the spirit in which they are intended, and in learning to send honest messages. Not an easy assignment. Millard Fuller got a lot of attention, partly because he and his organization are decent enough not to laugh off the women's discomfort. If the rest of us learn from his troubles, he'll have done even more good in the world than he meant to.

(Amanda Smith has for 10 years been a consultant to industry and education, developing programs helping train men and women to work better together. Questions may be addressed to her at Scripps Howard News Service 1WO Vermont NW, Suite 1000. Washington, D.C. 20005.) Plastics- it has been successful The Japanese, who have out- manufactured and out-marketed Americans in cameras, cars and computers, are now mounting an assault on one of our most sacred thrones. They're trying to unseat us in the toilet race.

A recent article in Advertising iSf ma 8 azine reported that Toto Ltd Japan's largest plumbing products company, is bringing an rr yJ of micr commodes to the United States. Toto is no upstart company If anything, it is flush with success The head of the heads, you might year alone Tot sold $2.4 billion worth of products bowling over 70 percent of the Japanese market. One Toto's wares is the Washlet SHI an electronic device that converts a regular toilet seat into a bidet with jets of warm air and water. Jo DeLyon, a spokeswoman for the company, said Americans need this sort of play-prettv because they "spend a good portion of their time in the bathroom People are into comfort there just like they're into comfort in the rest of their home." How true. But in the bathroom, comfort is a warm seat.

Not some electronic contraption that might go on the fritz at 3 a.m. Think about this for just a minute: Dp you want to expose a very sensitive and very private portion of your anatomy to an electronic instrument? In the presence of water? Another model is the Washlet Queen, an extremely sophisticated toilet capable of analyzing urine measuring blood pressure and transmitting test results instantly to a physician. As a proud son of Southern Appalachia who is barely one generation removed from the privy, I find these products exceedingly disturbing. 8 I may not know much about plumbing in general, but I have over 40 years' experience in the use of porcelain. And I have gotten along wonderfully, thank you just the same, without jets of warm air and water spurting about right 1 1 let al some ratfink toilet that snitches to my doc I say we put a stop to this madness before it gets out of hand.

The last thing we need is a toilet that is smarter than we are It was bad enough when someone invented talking cars to remind us when the lights are on or 5fw tn open Do we want talking toilets, too? If this is the direction American plumbing is headed, count me out Give me a Sears, Roebuck catalog and point me toward the little brown shack out back WINONA, Minn. (AP) Plastics. In the 1960s movie "The Graduate," it was the one word of advice imparted to Benjamin at his graduation party. Updated to the '90s in Winona, it still rings true as a sign of the times albeit a lot less cynically. The Mississippi River town is acknowledged as one of the birthplaces of space-age plastics.

Its long-running love affair with the industry has produced a storybook tale of big-time success in a small town. Winona companies have manufactured materials used to make heat-resistant parts for the B-2 stealth bomber, solid rocket booster exhaust cones on U.S. shuttles, airplane doors, body panels for Grand Prix cars racing kayaks, automobile bump- en and graphite fishing rods. "We're not the hub, like some people say, but we are certainly one of the spokes," said Stan Prosen, a consultant in Winona known as an industry godfather for his work in 1963 on a carbon fiber- laced 'O' ring used to develop the Polaris missile. "We do have a subset of the technology here that is spectacular, said Richard Enochs of ICI Fiberite, the nation's largest manufacturer of materials for advanced "composites" the industry's term for high-tech plastics.

Unlike mere thermoplastics composites are a mix of stiff fibers woven or otherwise combined with resins. They can be as strong as steel and lighter than aluminum. "They are industrial pioneers in this industry," said Dennis Nielsen, chairman of the engineering department at Winona State University. Inspired by the success, Nielsen has helped to open the nation's first undergraduate degree pro gram in composite materials engineering with the help this year of 110.4 million in state money to build an on-campus home for the program "We're recruiting heavily from Southern California (the industry's heartland)," Nielsen said. "It gives us national identity and that's hard to find in academia." Winona got its start in advanced composites in 1948, when Rudy and Ben Miller founded Fiberite and joined the U.S.-Soviet space race.

Fiberite contributed rocket components light enough for launching and strong enough to withstand hellish temperatures. Unlike regular plastics, composites can be tough and stiff without being flimsy or brittle They resist corrosion, cut noise absorb impact, and enable the B-2 stealth bomber to duck radar detection. The composites industry directly accounts for about 1,000 of the 20,000 jobs in Winona, said Judith Bodway, local economic development director. To stimulate even more activity, the city is seeking 1584,000 in state money to fund the fledgling Advanced Composites Manufacturing Center, she said. FREE Dtllwy FREE Disposal Of Old Bedding 6 Months Interest FREE Financing GUARANTEED LOWEST PRICES! PriCM Start At Low At TWIN, Ea.

PC. "We know that composites have a huge future," Bodway said. The Office of Technology Assessment for the U.S. Congress estimates that sales of advanced composite components produced in the United States will soar from $2 billion in 1989 to $20 billion at the turn of the century. Enochs said Winona is expected to share in that gain even if defense spending slows down HARDY MUMS 5 FOR 19.99 821-7555 Choict of Woods Choico of Stains Choico of Fabrics Choico of Paymonts MARKLAND MALL 459 9294 In the "Old Gty Halt" 102 N.

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