your Money: 10 Stocks to Ponder for a 1997 Portfolio INVESTING
firtÛªs a safe bet we'll never see I another two years in tire stock tJ. market like 1995 and 1996. jYou just donÛªt make 30 percent rback-to-back. But why not try for a Û÷triple?</br></br>firtÛªs a safe bet we'll never see I another two years in tire stock tJ. market like 1995 and 1996. jYou just donÛªt make 30 percent rback-to-back. But why not try for a Û÷triple? f \ In 1995,1 started compiling an Û÷annual list of 10 stocks for the year fahead, culling selections from the .choices of folks whose opinions 1 Ûª.Value. That year, the list returned å£31.4 percent, compared with 34.4 ! percent for the Standard & Poor's ] 500-stock index. Last year's list did even better, returning 32.0 Û¢percent, compared with 29.3 percent for the S&P. (These figures assume that dividends were rein-'Vested.,The year ends, in all cases, oh Jan. 16.)</br></br>Not only did our lists prove you can make lots of money in the stock market, they cohfirmed an axiom of academic research: You ;;usually need to own no more than 10 stocks to come close to duplicating the market averages, as long as the companies are in different businesses.</br></br>ÐÊ.'Û¢The 1996 portfolio performed Tike most its size: a few big win-nfers, a few big losers and bunch in :the middle. Seagate Technology Inc.;,ihe hard-drive maker, was up -100 percent; Schlumberger Ltd., - the oilfield services company, rose " 75 percent. Losers were Eskimo Pie Corp. and Hanson PLC, the huge British conglomerate.</br></br>betical order), with a few warnings: First, I donÛªt believe in owning stocks for only a year, and, while weÛªU examine the results in January 1998, they should be considered long-term holdings. Second, these tips are those of other analysts.