Last Year's Experience... We selected S&P 500 companies using various criteria, and came up with these 12-month total returns for each group SELECTION CRITERION RETURN* COMPANIES WHOSE PROFIT MARGINS GREW 36.2% COMPANIES IN TOP QUINTILE, RETURN ON INVESTED CAPITAL 37.4 COMPANIES WITH BUSINESS WEEK INDUSTRY RANK OF 1 OR 2 40.5 BUSINESS WEEK 50 AVERAGE 44.5* S&P 500 AVERAGE 31.3 ...Suggests Some Stocks to Consider Now In this year's rankings, these companies fit all three of the criteria--wider profit margins, top quintile return on invested capital, and BW industry rank of 1 or 2 COMPANY PERFORMANCE RANK COMPANY PERFORMANCE RANK APPLIED MATERIALS 13 PFIZER 12 AVERY DENNISON 193 SCHLUMBERGER 18 CAMPBELL SOUP 131 TELLABS 7 DELL COMPUTER 2 TJX 21 GILLETTE 38 UNITED TECHNOLOGIES 151 HERSHEY FOODS 98 US AIRWAYS GROUP 14 INTEL 4 USX-U.S. STEEL GROUP 225 MICROSOFT 1 *Minus stocks removed during the year DATA: STANDARD & POOR'S COMPUSTAT, A DIVISION OF THE McGRAW-HILL COMPANIES Return to main story

Updated Mar. 19, 1998 by bwwebmaster
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