Long Term Growth

In my younger days (40 years or so ago) I received the wisdom that common stocks should be bought and held for the long term as a major way to save for future goals. I passed this wisdom, perhaps with less enthusiasm, along to my children. Here is a list of ten stocks which have been known over the years as 'growth securities'. These figures ignore dividends and are split-adjusted.

Symbol........Price Early 1999.....Current Price.....Percent Change

MMM....................40........................48.........................+20
MSFT....................44........................18..........................-59
MCD......................43.........................56.........................+30
KO.........................63.........................43..........................-32
MRK.....................82..........................28.........................-66
BMY.....................63..........................21.........................-67
WMT....................45..........................48.........................+7
GE.........................35..........................11.........................-68
MOT.....................24...........................4..........................-83
PG.........................49...........................50........................+2

The arithmetic mean of these percentage changes is minus 32. I haven't known in the past what to do with my money, and I don't know now. But I can tell you this: There is some cool charting software available for free use on the web.