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RANCHO RESORT MAINTANANCE POSITION Health Care Sierra Tucson Eating Disorders Program Coordinator General A1 Communications Cable Techs BusinessOpinion by Richard Ducote: 15 Tucson women give Wall Street a nice lessonTucson, Arizona | Published: 12.04.2005
Mention retirement and some people think of hammocks or Winnebagos.
A group of retired Tucson women is thinking about Wall Street and coming up with some pretty good numbers.
Better Investing, formerly the National Association of Investors Corp., just named the Sahuaro Speculators of Tucson as the No. 1 participating club in Arizona for the past year, posting a compounded annual investment return of 18.05 percent.
That's roughly five times the Standard & Poor's 500 Index Growth Rate for the same period.
Who are these sharpshooters?
Former teachers and staffers at Sahuaro High School. The 15 women meet monthly to learn about investing.
They seem to have learned well.
Former English teacher Liz Callahan, secretary of the group, looks at the club as an educational and social pursuit. Oh, and it's profitable.
The club, which will be 10 years old next month, now boasts an investment portfolio valued at $60,000.
It works like this: Each member contributes $25 a month. New members buy into the club and old members can sell their shares.
Even better than counting up the investment returns, says the former English teacher, is the learning. "We are all so much more confident about finances."
Much of it is simply "vocabulary," she continues.
It's fun to win, of course, as in racking up positive returns. But it's good just to feel conversant in the subject of investing.
How do they make their investing picks? Any member can bring a suggestion to a monthly meeting.
Someone is assigned to do research, using the research firm Value Line and other resources to size up the company's five-to-10-year rate of return, its earnings and sales, and other factors.
Then the results are presented to the club. The members then decide to invest, or not invest, or put it on hold for further review.
The most recent buy? L3 Communications, in for 45 shares, or about $3,443, says Ann Grose, junior partner, the rough equivalent of vice president of the club.
The most recent sell? Pfizer, sold for a loss after waiting years for better results, says Grose, a former social studies teacher.
They also recently sold Kimberly Clark, breaking even. The club uses Ameritrade for its transactions.
One of the best performers over the years, one of the club's early picks, is Walgreen Co., which Grose says has improved 300 percent since its purchase.
The women tycoons have another reason for liking Walgreens. One member remembered a former student at Sahuaro High, one 1970 graduate by the name of Jeffrey Rein.
He went on to graduate in accounting and pharmacy from the University of Arizona, join Walgreens in 1982 as an assistant manager, and is now corporate president and chief operating officer.
One club member collared Rein last year as he was inducted into the Sahuaro Hall of Fame and told him he had better look after their investment of about 100 shares.
All in all, "We're doing pretty well," Grose says.
Club activities keep members involved in what's going on.
There are more than 250 affiliated clubs in Arizona, although only nine submitted results in the recent rankings.
It's likely only those clubs with outstanding results submitted them, and that seems to be typical for participation in other states.
There are nearly 18,000 affiliated clubs nationally, a number likely to grow as boomers retire.
People could do worse things with their time and money.
Whether a group of friends consistently beat stock indexes is not that important. The process seems to enlighten them and make the effort worthwhile.
● Contact Richard Ducote at 573-4178 or rducote@azstarnet.com.
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