My club is right now slowly learning the (new to us) Toolkit software, relying heavily on the manual we purchased.  We really miss having an index in the back!  We are constantly referring back to the Classic Plus manual which had a good index.

We also have a question regarding the defaults on toolkit preferences. What is the thinking behind using 10 years for averages versus 5?  Should we keep the default of 5 years of data and when would we change it to 10?

thanks

Janet Ralston

Fat Asset Investment Club

It's really a user preference -- it might change depending on where we are in the bull/bear cycle. Sometimes five-year averages might be too high, if we were coming out of an extended bull market, in which case you might want to use ten-year averages by default. For some companies, too, it makes more sense to look at five-year instead of ten-year histories, if a company's growth rate has been declining significantly for instance and the "ancient" history is greatly different from the last five years.

I would suggest using five-year averages by default until you gain some experience and then understand how better to use 10-year averages.

DG