In This Issue - May 2001

Never mind the New York Stock Exchange, in which stocks ranging from Payless Shoe Store to Phillip Morris have vaulted toward new highs. And never mind the shrinking percentage of tech representation -- by market capitalization -- on the Standard & Poor's 500. Tax-cut battles in Congress, Saddam Hussein's perpetual saber rattling in the Middle East, "Pardongate," the California utilities crisis ... fuhgetaboutit, as they say in the Big Apple. The one thing that seems to be keeping the Nasdaq from reaching the ever-elusive bottom is the fact that so many would-be market participants are doing little more than standing around waiting for it to happen.

If tech's your thing, yet the tech takings are slim, what's an investor to do? Maybe it's time to take off from the rock 'em, sock 'em world of tech stocks and spend a little time planning for something as mundane as paying for college tuition for your kids or thinking about how you will get your retirement money back once you've hung up your working shoes for good. As we point out in this month's Working Money, earning great returns as an investor is only part of the battle. Getting your money back and putting it to work to actually meet those goals you've set is just as important, whether those goals are paying for higher education or making ends meet as a retiree.

This may also be a good time to brush up on your stock-picking prowess. In "Small Caps: Growing Value And Valuing Growth," both Richard Baker of SmallCapStockNews.com and Greg McCrickard of T. Rowe Price offer some solid advice on evaluating small-cap growth and value companies, and in "Why Not Oil Stocks?" Douglas Reynolds provides some thoughts on using oil stocks as a hedge in these uncertain economic times. For you inveterate technical analyst types, our piece on candlesticks will send you to your charts faster than a news bulletin from Bloomberg, and for all you market bears out there, our continuing series on bonds will keep you busy all spring.

Or at least until the bottom finally gets here.