The millionaires

By HELEN HUNTLEY, Times Staff Writer

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 30, 2000

Brett Hayman

[Times photo: Dirk Shadd]

Age: 41

Occupation: High school guidance counselor

Years investing: "Just three seriously. I had taken a shot at the stock market in 1995 and 1996 with meager results."

Where he got the money to invest: "I borrowed $7,000 from my mother."

Investment education: "I started reading the business page, different investing magazines and Investor's Business Daily. I learned by trial and error."

Stock-picking criteria: "I want to own the leading tech and telecom stocks in various niches such as networking, wireless, semiconductors, etc. I look for consistent high annual earnings growth, low debt, high quarterly and annual sales growth. I prefer companies with actual earnings. I pray a lot and I study stock charts with a passion. Numbers and volume don't lie; they merely take some of the emotion out of the game."

Smart move: "I decided in 1997 to focus on technology and invested my $7,000 in Dell Computer, Microsoft and America Online. I used margin to add to my positions as these three stocks shot to the moon. As my portfolio appreciated and knowledge grew, I diversified to include market leaders such as Cisco, Sun Micro and Nokia."

Information sources: "I read Money and Red Herring magazines and Investor's Business Daily. I listen to (analyst) Gary Kaltbaum at 4 p.m. each day on AM-1250, do online research at Nasdaq.com, and my best friend and I get together one night a week to discuss our stocks in detail."

Professionals: "I use an online discount broker."

Average holding period: "I have owned Cisco for 2 1/2 years and think it's the premier tech darling, but I have owned other stocks for just a day or two if I determined that I bought at the wrong time. You can't be emotional about a stock. Look at the chart and if it's down 10 percent or more, dump it. I sell on bad news. If it's acting good and the fundamentals are in place, add to the position."

Advice: "Research and read. Buy only the leaders. Look for powerful earnings and sales growth and low debt. Don't bail out when the market looks really stormy. That's usually the best time to invest."

Satisfaction: "My initial goal was to have my assets exceed my debts. I believe that God has blessed me far beyond my wildest dreams."

Joseph Hall

[Times photo: Scott Keeler] Joseph Hall dances wth Laura Brown at the Clearwater Beach Recreation Center recently.

Age: 88

Occupation: Retired dance teacher and dance-costume company owner

Years investing: 30

Where he got the money to invest: "I started small with profits from my business and all the money I saved by not smoking and drinking. Then I retired in 1981 and sold my business. I had time on my hands and I invested in the stock market."

Investment education: Reading books, watching business news on TV.

Stock-picking criteria: "If I think a certain thing is a good thing to own, I buy some. If you see something going great guns, you should jump on it."

Smart move: "I always thought technology was going to be the future so I invested in Intel and other technology stocks. I bought 1,000 shares of e-Bay and paid $130 a share. It split 3-for-1. Even today it's gone down but it's still worth about half a million. But I don't use a computer or the Internet. I always thought I was too old to start."

Dumb move: "I bought Iomega for about $52 and I think I sold it for around $10."

Big regret: "None. When you buy and sell, you're going to make profits or losses. If you lose here or there, you just offset it with a gain. At 88 how much time do I have left? I can't take it with me, and I don't care whether I leave my relatives a million or a half-million."

Information sources: "I watch my QuoTrek machine all day to see prices changing from minute to minute. I read Kiplinger's Personal Finance, Individual Investor and the St. Petersburg Times."

Professionals: "I use a full-service broker. I pay a 1 percent annual charge."

Average holding period: "I like to buy and hold. I don't want to sell my stock and have to pay the government."

Advice: "Invest or gamble with money you can afford to lose."

Satisfaction: "I have a nice home and I'm enjoying life. I don't worry about anything. My wife and I get $2,000 a month in Social Security and that's what we spend. That's enough. I don't care about fancy things. I've given away $800,000 worth of Intel stock, which would now be worth twice that or more, to my relatives. I have 125 nieces and nephews, grandnieces and nephews and great-grandnieces and nephews."

John Powell

[Times photo: Dirk Shadd]

Age: 58

Occupation: Substitute teacher, self-employed training specialist

Years investing: 25

Where he got the money to invest: "I cashed in my teacher's retirement fund when I moved here from Ohio. Since then I have received a lump-sum distribution and a 401(k) account from a company that downsized me."

Investment education: "Newspapers, books and talking with investment professionals. I took a financial planning course at St. Petersburg Junior College."

Stock-picking criteria: "Leadership in the company, the general outlook and the company's fundamentals such as price-earnings ratio and market share. Although value stocks have not done well as a group, I have been successful by looking for solid companies that for some reason have had a drastic reduction in their stock price."

Smart move/dumb move: "I doubled my money buying McDonald's stock, then lost most of it buying a Japanese stock on the advice of a broker. I learned to look beyond advice and consider my own goals."

Memorable learning experience: "Last year a good friend told me had lost over $100,000 and was getting out of volatile investments like small-cap mutual funds. I considered myself blessed that I had never had to deal with such a great loss. Two weeks later my investments headed south. In less than three days, I lost more than my friend had. It made me realize real value isn't a number on paper but rather the ability to realistically evaluate where you are and where you are going. A 10 or 15 percent correction in a million-dollar investment portfolio shouldn't change long-range goals."

Big winners: Jabil Circuit Inc., GTE Corp., Electronic Data Systems Corp.

Big losers: Sports & Leisure, Vision Twenty-One, Danka Business Systems

Professionals: "I use a full-service broker."

Information sources: Smart Money, the St. Petersburg Times, the Internet (http://www.snap.com and http://www.bloomberg.com).

Average holding period: "Three to five years. I have several investments I've held for 25 years."

Advice: "You can't live in, drive or eat a stock. Enjoy a lifestyle firmly rooted in your values. Forget about being a wealthy person."

Bertram Kaiser

[Times photo: Jim Damaske]

Age: 81

Occupation: Retired retail chain executive

Years investing: 49

Where he got the money to invest: "Careful expenditures. Whenever I got a bonus, I assumed it wasn't income; it was for investment."

Investment education: "I attended a seminar here and there."

Stock-picking criteria: "I don't pick stocks; I pick companies. I want to know the guts of the business, the free cash flow. I would be called a value investor. I made a lot of money 10 or 11 years ago buying bank stocks when the banks were in real trouble."

Smart move: "I retired Sept. 1, 1982, and decided to take my basic company retirement, around $150,000, and put it 100 percent into equities. At the time my contemporaries were gloating about the high returns on CDs, but you could not have picked a better day to be fully invested in equities."

Dumb move: "I bought partnership interests in the 1980s. I lost a lot of money on Koger partnerships by reinvesting all the money they were paying me."

Big regret: "As well as I knew Sam Walton and considered him the best retailer I ever met, I just didn't feel he had the wisdom to build the entity that he built. I finally bought 300 shares of Wal-Mart about five years ago. It's split 2-for-1 since then, but I could have made a lot more money."

Information sources: "I'm too frugal to get the Wall Street Journal. Most days around 5 p.m. and occasionally during the day I tune in to CNBC. I avidly read the New York Times Sundays."

Professionals: "I use four brokers. I give one discretionary authority and the other three are just for consultation on accounts that are 100 percent my responsibility."

Average holding period: "Years. I've got some stocks I've owned for 20 to 25 years."

Advice: "If you are drawing a decent salary, you ought to be able to invest 10 percent of it. Trust your own business judgment. Use automatic reinvestment of dividends."

Satisfaction: "The point of having some money is to be able to think of things other than making money. I still vote Democratic. I give money to the City College of New York. I'll never be a fat cat. I set up accounts for my grandchildren because I want to allow these young people to be able to make their life decisions without worrying about the size of the paychecks."

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