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The Lompoc Record from Lompoc, California • 6

Publication:
The Lompoc Recordi
Location:
Lompoc, California
Issue Date:
Page:
6
Extracted Article Text (OCR)

A6 THE LOMl'OC RECOKD Sunday, August 26, 2007 3 The Motley Fool' To Educate, Amuse Enrich rcriimTTTimTTmni What Thlf Thing Called Th Motley Fool? Remember Shakespeare? Remember "As You Like In Elizabethan days, Fools were the only people who could get away with telling the truth to the King or Queen. The Motley Fool tells the truth about investing, and hopes you 'II laugh all the way to the bank. Whirlpool's Spin Cycle As with most companies tied to residential housing, appliance manufacturer Whirlpool (NYSE: W1IR) is experiencing a down cycle in its domestic business. But a recent acquisition of an archrival is helping the company cut costs, and international trends are coming in static-free. Whirlpool recently reported anemic overall second-quarter sales growth of 3 percent.

North American sales, which accounted for more than 60 percent of total sales, fell 6 percent, offsetting double-digit growth in Europe, Latin America and Asia, as the company benefits from a weak dollar and an array of new When the Market Tanks Why do market corrections upset us so much? 1 Iere are two reasons: We hate losses more tlian we like gains, and corrections tend to be fast and big. The market might spend a year going up 20 percent, only to give up three quarters of tliat gain in a tew trading days. 1 he downward spikes happen so "Anticipating Earnings QWho determines the "anticipated earnings" for upcoming quarters that I often run across online? Are they just guesses? Don't they put pressure on companies to perform? When companies fail to meet the predictions, they often get punished. OF, Erie. Pa.

A Earnings estimates usually reflect the consensus of Wall Street analysts, who have traditionally been given guidance by the company's management. Company bigwigs will frequently, in their quarterly earnings reports and elsewhere, state their earnings and revenue expectations for the coming quarters or years. In the past, they would often disclose information privately to selected parties, but that's a no-no now, thank goodness. Information on earnings expectations can help investors crunch numbers to come up with estimates of a company's fair value. But you're quite correct too much attention is given to quarterly results.

For long-term investors, the most important thing is how a company will perform over the coming years or decades, not what analysts expect will happen in the next three quickly that we tear they 11 keep going all die way to few weeks. Unless your reason for owning a stock has fundamentally changed, there's no good reason to sell even if the dip drags on for several months. Remember that sometimes a recovery happens more quickly than the correction did and even during the correction, prices will bounce up and down. Look for buying opportunities. It goes against our nature to plow more money into die market when things are looking bad, but for a buyer, a correction means that stocks are on a storewide sale.

So take a look at your favorite stocks (or mutual funds) and see whether you can grab some bargains. Sure, they might go lower but even if you don't get the lowest price, you can still set yourself up for good long-term gains. If all else fails, just go to the beach. Seriously: If you're fully invested in good stocks, there's really no need to do anything. If you built your portfolio using sound investment principles, those principles are still sound, even if Mr.

Market is having a tough month. A Racquetball Loss In my younger years, a guy I played racquetball with talked me into investing in a pepper farm in Mexico. He was supposed to fly me down to Mexico to survey the operation, but that never happened. Needless to say, the investment went under, as well as the salesman (my ex-racquet-ball partner), whom I never saw again. I have a hunch that if I check the state prison directory, he'd show up.

This operation was very slick CPA reports, finan-cials, etc. I wrote it off as an investment loss, so I didn't get hurt too badly except for my pride; I didn't think I could ever be taken like that! Caveat emptor! R.B., Morgan Hilt, Calif. The Fool Responds: This is a great warning about how we should all be wary of any seemingly amazing investment opportunity that anyone tries to sell us. When we deal with publicly traded stock in American companies, we can take comfort in the fact that they have to report on their progress quarterly, including audited annual reports. products under the Whirlpool, Maytag, Jenn-Air and the bottom, even if we know diat that's very unlikely.

Selling on market dips is usually a bad idea, even if it is human nature. Not only do you lock in a loss, but you also pass up good buying opportunities. 1 Iere's what to do when the market slumps: Don't panic. The market has always recovered. Odds are high that it'll recover this time, too.

Remember that your investment horizon is years away, and corrections are often over and gone in a KitchenAid brand names. Bottom-line growth wasn't a problem. Whirlpool is busy cutting costs from last March's acquisition of archrival Maytag. Stock buybacks of $101 million also helped quarterly diluted earnings grow 60 percent. Management sees total U.S.

shipments dropping by a few percentage points, but still expects strong full-year diluted earnings. The stock has surged recently, but it might keep growing, if management can cut more costs from the merger. It's also contending with higher raw-material costs from rising oil prices. There's def Jiitely endurance in Whirlpool 's spin cycle, even if the bulk of the benefit may have already sloshed over to existing shareholders. A fall in the stock price would present a more compelling buying opportunity.

Name That Company I'm one of North America's largest trucking companies months. If you're aiming to hold on to a great company for a decade or more, the two numbers Do you have an embarrassing lesson learned the hard way? Boil it down to 100 words (or and "Your Hometown National Carrier." I was created in 1990 by four cousins with the same last that will determine your ultimate gain are the price you bought at and the price you sold at, not the stock's price every three months. less) and send it to The Motley Fool do My Dumbest Investment. Got one that worked? Submit to My Smartest Investment. If we print yours, you 11 win a Fool 's cap! name and 80 years of trucking experience between them.

Today I run a fleet of more than 3,600 tractors and 8,500 trailers from 27 Exactly how many mutual 'funds are out there? K.L., St. Louis strategically located service centers nationwide. The principal types of freight I transport include consumer staples, retail, i 7 paper products, packagingplastics, manu 1 LAST WEEK'S TRIVIA ANSWER I was born in 1837 in Cincinnati to two soap- and candle-making brothers-in-law. My celestial logo dates back to the 1850s. I recorded $1 million in sales in 1859, which is up to around $70 billion annually now.

Review my financial reports, and you'll see lots of Cheer and a Zest-y Bounce in my step. Want to know my Secret of my Bounty, and why I'm Head Shoulders above many competitors? It's partly my Scope. I Gain by offering everything from Gillette razors to Duracell batteries to Folgers coffee to Oral-B toothbrushes and much more. Who am (Answer: Procter Gamble) i I facturing and importexport commodities. I A According to the Investment Company Institute, at the end of 2006, mere were 8,120 mutual funds in existence.

Oddly enough, there are roughly as many mutual funds as publicly traded companies. No wonder it can be hard to find outstanding funds. There are some terrific ones out there, though learn more at www.fool.comfunds also operate some subsidiaries, in brokerage services (serving shippers and carriers) and refrigeration. Customers can track their loads on my Web site. Who am Write to Us! Send questions for Ask the Fool, Dumbest (or Smartest) Investments (up to 100 words), and your Trivia entries to Foolfool.com or via regular mail co this newspaper, arm: The Motley Fool.

Sorry, we can 't provide individual financial qdvice. Got a question for the Fool? Send it in see Write to Us Know the answer? Send it to us with Foolish Trivia on the top and you'll be entered into a drawing for a nifty prize! 2017 Tin Mm I i-y hmi Dist. by I Isivi tsa Pw ss Svsim (hir hi i si B2.12IKI7) SARAH BREEDLOVE WALKER Pioneer businesswoman HHP- mm ing figure. An adept business-woman and saleswoman, Sarah soon had hundreds of commission agents selling her products. In 1910 Sarah moved her headquarters to Indianapolis where she built a new factory and a training center to prepare Vinx "hnif i (Un 1 Vi r.t Great American; A- yTf" Walker system.

By 1917 The Madame C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company was the largest black-owned enterprise in the United States, with 2,000 agents flnH annual rpvpnnac annmnph. If ing $500,000. Philanthropy was a major non nt varah'c cmil vha ha naH fund the first black YMCA, and various schools and institutes Associated Press ior young Airican Americans.

Stephen Wynne poses under gull wing doors and an old fiberglass car body at the DeLorean Motor Company in Humble, Texas. -kuiuiiiirvuiibi iud i ecu. oat Villa Lewero, her massive Daniel Alef CONTRIBUTING WRITER As America entered the 20th century, women were still denied many of the rights we now take for granted. They did not have the right to vote. There were few women doctors, fewer women lawyers and virtually no women business executives.

Black women had even fewer rights. So the story of Sarah Breedlove Walker, also known as Madam C.J. Walker, is a tale of achieving the impossible: she became one of the first women, white or black, to succeed in business no less in a white man's world! Sarah Breedlove, the daughter of freed slaves, was born in Louisiana in 1867. Her family lived in a windowless shack and slept on the ground. Her parents died before she was seven and Sarah moved in with her older sister and her husband.

Her sister's husband was so abusive, Sarah escaped by getting married when she was 14. She had a child, Lelia, in 1885, but was a widow by 20. Sarah moved to St. Louis, MO, and worked as a domestic. "I couldn't see how a poor washerwoman was going to better my condition," she rued.

Joining the St. Paul AME Church she met some of the middle-class black women in the community. Some of these women not only inspired Sarah to attend night school, but took responsibility for Lelia's education, one of the few roads, though unpaved and rutted, to salvation from oppression. Sarah's hair began falling out in small clumps, probably due Georgian mansion at Irvington-on-the-Hudson. She died in 1919,.

just 52 years old. "TFT koon Sarah Breedlove Walker i nave aiviAjmuimiimj miv- cause I have been willing to work hard There is no royal, flower-strewn road to success, and if there is, I have not found One magazine claimed Sarah rxn Rut tricot On the Web www.delorean.com that, it's fun to drive and very comfortable." Unfortunately, DeLorean simply couldn't sell enough of the cars to sustain the busi-. ness. The company folded in 1983, a year after DeLorean was busted in a drug trafficking sting and accused of conspiring to sell $24 million worth of cocaine to salvage the venture. He used an entrapment defense to win acquittal, but legal entanglements plagued i him for years to come.

He died in 2005 at age 80. 1 Kevin Smith, editorial director for the automotive Web site Edmunds.com, said he's ihterested to see if the Humble effort fares better than the Irish debacle. He said quality control is DELOREAN: Continued from page A5 created what some consider the first "muscle car," putting a V-8 engine into a Pontiac Tempest and calling it the GTO. When DeLorean began making his own car in Northern Ireland in 1981, Baker said he fell in love with it. Of course, as a teenager, he wasn't able to shell out $25,000.

Now, at 41, Baker is a proud DeLorean owner. "You have to understand it's a car that never got to its full development because it was gone before it really hit its prime," Baker said. "And you have to realize it's 25 years old. But understanding she accomplished was infinitely greater. "Great American Fortunes," by award-winnine local author to psoriasis and other scalp ailments common at the time.

She experimented with various hair preparations before settling on those sold by Annie Turnbo Malone, another enterprising black woman. Sarah subsequently became one of Turnbo's saleswomen. In search of a new sales territory for Turnbo's wares, Sarah moved to Denver where she married Charles J. Walker, a journalist with some knowledge of marketing. At his urging she became Madam C.J.

Walker and created her own cosmetic creams and treatments. Traveling door-to-door, covering several states, the fashionably dressed woman cut a flourish Daniel Alef tells the stories of the super-rich and eccentric moguls who made their fortunes in America and had a profound influence on the nation and the often an issue with limited production, "but I'm always optimistic for people who want to make new and interesting cars." The newest version of the DeLorean will certainly be interesting and exclusive, Smith said, "and for some people with means, that's enough." globe. Alef can be reached at daleftitansoffortune.com Sell It Rent It Search It Enjoy a late summer-early fall afternoon and barbecue your lavorue meat. Be sure to include some great Central Coast wine and stay clear of the barbecue crank. DTT 8 rasa i we used to have our Hay Co.

barbecues, remembering to stay clear of the crank and not ask Dad to do any guest barbecuing on it. I'm pretty sure it was Ed's Idea not to have a stopping mechanism on the crank. We would all laugh about It later, including Dad. I went on to Allan Hancock College, took welding classes for two years and became a pretty good welder, skills I use from time to time on the vineyard today, went into the house to see if he had any teeth left and have a couple of bourbon-and-waters to calm his nerves. I think Dana and I finished barbecuing the chicken, staying clear of the crank.

i The next day, Dad went down to the hardware store In Solvang and bought a new Weber barbecue. I was told to get that damn thing out of the yard, and the best place for It was the dump. Well, we Just moved It down under some oak trees where ternoon when dad was standing next to the crank in the halfway position up over his head. Dad had the grill full of chicken and, while he was reaching for his fork, the crank let loose of its free-standing position and swung around and caught dud right under the chin, lifting him six Inches off the ground. He was lucky did not lose some teeth or break his Jaw.

Needless to say, there was quite a bit of swearing, as Dud MERRILL: Continued from page AS ered the grill, making grill adjustment a little tricky. Many times you could move the crank halfway up, and the grill would be in the right position over the fire, but there was no way to lock It In place. We had made the crank out of old "sucker rod" from a water well, and It had plenty of rough sH)ts on It that helXMl hold It In place until one af jiciii mm i hi is a vineyara manager for Mesa Vineyard Management in Santa Maria. He is president Of the Central ClnnHWIn in the classified section Grouvrs'Aviociatum Foundation and a board member of the Santa Barbara County Farm liurtau. He can be reached at Hi.

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About The Lompoc Record Archive

Pages Available:
381,612
Years Available:
1875-2024