It’s Fortune magazine, August 2000, Special Investors Issue, Retire Rich
Article: 10 Stocks to Last the Decade
And here’s the list:
| Stock | Ticker | Price | P/E | Comment |
| Broadcom | BRCM | $237 | 255 | Maker of chips used in the next generation of entertainment devices |
| Charles Schwab | SCH | $36 | 56 | Former discount broker that has grown up along with its boomer clients |
| Enron | ENE | $73 | 51 | Biggest online broker for coal, oil, and gas; next up — broadband |
| Genentech | DNA | $150 | 128 | Offers a huge pipeline of promising drugs, plus a topflight sales force |
| Morgan Stanley Dean Witter | MWD | $89 | 18 | Just passed Goldman Sachs as the top M&A firm in the world |
| Nokia | NOK | $54 | 75 | Mobile-phone maker now moving into “smart” appliances |
| Nortel Networks | NT | $77 | 114 | 75% of U.S. Internet Traffic travels through its equipment |
| Oracle | ORCL | $74 | 86 | Onetime database firm that has become an e-commerce must-own |
| Univision | UVN | $113 | 122 | Biggest Spanish-language TV programmer in the country |
| Viacom | VIA | $69 | 96 | Owns a stable of media brands like CBS, MTV, and Paramount Pictures |
1 share of each = $972.
Where are they now?:
| Stock | Ticker | Price | P/E | Comment |
| Broadcom | BRCM | $28 | 68 | Stock split in 2006 |
| Charles Schwab | SCHW | $22 | 11 | Delisted from the NYSE, moved to NASDAQ. |
| Enron | ECSPQ | $0.08 | 0.35 | Bankrupt. Trading Over the Counter |
| Genentech | DNA | $70 | 24 | Split twice, once right after the article was written and again in 2004 |
| Morgan Stanley | MS | $47 | 27 | Caught up on mortgage meltdown, bailed out by a Chinese company |
| Nokia | NOK | $29 | 10 | Traded as low as $11 a share |
| Nortel Networks | NT | $8 | - | Fell on hard times immediately following the article. Did 1:10 reverse split in 2006. So you can think of the stock as 80 cents. |
| Oracle | ORCL | $22 | 22 | Split soon after the article. Hit a low of $8. |
| Univision | - | - | - | Taken private at $36 / share |
| Viacom CBS |
VIA CBS |
$39 $23 |
14 13 |
Viacom split its shares into the tangled mess of VIA, VIA.B, CBS, CBS.B |
Of the ten companies, the only one that would have made money over the past eight years was Genentech. Your shares would now be worth $506, a 48% loss. Without the admirable help of Genentech, the loss would have been 64%. Somehow it feels a lot worse than that though, considering that you would have lost everything on Enron and virtually everything on Nortel. Of course, the majority of people sold at or near the bottoms, fairing even worse. Mathematically speaking, the bottom is generally caused by increased selling. Nice picks.
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