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What Is This Thing Called Ask the Fool The Motley Fool? ® Remember Shakespeare? Remember “As You Like It”? Fund Losses In Elizabethan days, Fools were the only people who could get away with telling the Can I lose all of my money truth to the King or Queen. The Motley Fool The Motley Fool tells the truth about invest- Qin a mutual fund? — G.K., ing, and hopes you’ll laugh all Norwalk, Conn. To Educate, Amuse & Enrich the way to the bank. While some stocks can and Fool’s School rooms above the first floor tend to My Dumbest Investment The Motley Fool Take A do fall to zero, mutual funds be safer. You needn’t buy insurance rarely do, since they contain many Save Travel when you rent a car, as your credit When There’s One … Lockheed Martin’s different holdings. (Most stocks Dollars Online card or your own car insurance may aren’t huge gambles, though: If offer that. Trips with connecting One of my dumbest investments Upward Future you’ve been keeping up with your Your travel memories may be flights can be cheaper than direct was in Friedman’s, at one time the companies’ financial reports and priceless, but traveling costs money. flights. Using the second-closest third-largest jewelry chain in the When investing for your future, airport may save you money, too. news coverage, you’ll likely spot Learn how to save money on future U.S. The stock had tanked when an you should think about ... the future. journeys at www.fool.com/travel • At sites such as Priceline.com red flags long before a company investigation by the Securities and Your goal is to assemble a team of and below: and Hotwire.com, you can grab Exchange Commission (SEC) was high-quality “core stocks” that will goes out of business.) • Take advantage of online extra-low prices if you’re willing to announced. I figured the investiga- stand the test of time. Consider Still, many funds can signifi- resources. You can comparison- give up a little control. Consider tion was informal and the stock was Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT). cantly underperform the overall mar- shop and make reservations for air- using an experienced travel agent, cheap, but the price just kept falling Why? Well, Lockheed recently ket. If you don’t have faith in your fares, hotels and car rentals at sites too, especially if you’re too busy to after I bought, and the company announced fourth-quarter net fund’s management and don’t expect such as: Kayak.com, Hotels.com, do much research or have some eventually filed for bankruptcy pro- profits up an astounding 26 per- specialized needs. it to perform well in the future, you Travelocity.com, Expedia.com, tection, wiping out my investment. I cent over 2009 levels, and it’s Momondo.com, Sidestep.com, and • Take advantage of group should sell, taking the loss. Why learned to flee from SEC investiga- not slowing down. The company Orbitz.com. Check several, since discounts. Many airlines, hotel tions. It’s like turning on the lights in booked $20.5 billion in new leave money there, either stagnant or some airlines are included only on a chains and car rental agencies offer the kitchen at night and finding a business in the quarter, too. falling in value, when it could be few, or no, search engines. You can reduced rates to special groups. cockroach: There’s always more than Meanwhile, a key reason to growing elsewhere? also make reservations directly Senior citizens, for starters, get one cockroach lurking somewhere. own Lockheed Martin is its plan Just as there are good and through the websites of airlines, car some discounts, as do members of — Felix, Singapore to build the plane that U.S. Joint rental companies and hotel chains. AARP and AAA. Discounts are bad stocks, there are good and The Fool Responds: It can be Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael • You’ll find plenty of facts, tips often available for young people and Mullen says will be “the last bad funds. We’ve recommended a and deals at www.lonelyplanet.com, students (visit www.statravel.com tempting to snap up shares of a stock that crashes, but remember that manned fighter” jet ever to be bunch of top-notch, low-fee funds, www.roughguides.com, for some leads). You may also qual- built: the F-35 Lightning II. as well as some model portfolios, www.fodors.com, ify for some discounts through your stocks often crash for good reasons. Just because a stock is down, say, 80 Israel has announced its desire to in our “Rule Your Retirement” www.frommers.com, employer or a professional or social buy $1.8 billion worth of F-35s, a www.cruise.com, organization. Even membership in a percent, doesn’t mean it won’t be newsletter. Try it for free at down 90 percent by next week. number that may eventually swell to www.ruleyourretirement.com www.amtrak.com, warehouse club can present you $15.2 billion worth of F-35 hardware with some special deals. Some SEC investigations don’t and read all about them. http://travel.yahoo.com, and ancillary services. Canada plans www.airfarewatchdog.com and • Look before you leap. The world go anywhere, but it’s much safer to stick with healthy and growing to buy 65 jets for $9 billion. Mean- *** www.lastminutetravel.com. is not a uniformly friendly place to all while, concern over China’s new J-20 • Here are some of the things travelers. Get the latest in travel advi- companies rather than troubled Does a lower stock price ones, unless you understand their fighter design has other Asian nations, you’ll learn: Earlier airline flights sories from the State Department, at such as Japan, South Korea and Sin- Q signify a smaller company? — are less likely to be delayed. Hotel www.travel.state.gov. Bon voyage! troubles very well. In 2008, Fried- E.M., Goshen, Ind. man’s CEO was convicted of secu- gapore, very interested in the F-35. rities fraud, mail fraud and partici- The moral of this story? Not at all. You must factor pation in accounting fraud. Patience, grasshopper. Don’t fret A in the number of existing Name That Company Do you have an embarrassing Pentagon budget cuts. Lockheed’s only getting better with time. This shares to get an idea of a com- lesson learned the hard way? pany’s size. If the Free Range I was born in a California garage company has a hand in everything Boil it down to 100 words (or President Eisenhower ever warned Onion Co. (Ticker: BULBZ) in 1945, and my first products were less) and send it to The Motley Fool c/o My you about the military-industrial has a stock price of $10, for picture frames. Today I’m the world’s Dumbest Investment. Got one that worked? complex — and makes a nice example, and 1 billion shares Submit to My Smartest Investment. If we profit doing it. (The Fool owns outstanding, its market price biggest designer and vendor of toys. print yours, you’ll win a Fool’s cap! shares of Lockheed Martin.) (“market capitalization,” or My brands and licensed names include “market cap” to use Wall Street Matchbox, American Girl, ello, Radica, LAST WEEK’S TRIVIA ANSWER lingo) is $10 billion. If it has just Little People, See ’n Say, Max Steel, View- Born in 1886 and based in Wisconsin, I’ve morphed from a modest parquet 200 million shares outstanding, flooring company to a privately held global consumer products giant. My its market cap is $2 billion. Master, Scrabble, Othello, Magic 8 Ball, brands include Pledge, Glade, Windex, Ziploc, Kiwi, Shout, Fantastik, Drano, For some real-life examples, Blokus, Polly Pocket, Outburst, Uno, and more. Raid, OFF, Saran and Grand Prix. I’ve offered paid vacations since 1900 and look at General Electric, Safeway My Barbie debuted in 1959 and my Hot Wheels introduced profit sharing for all in 1917. I removed chlorofluorocarbons from and Ethan Allen. All were recently my aerosol products three years before the U.S. mandate. I donate 5 per- in 1968. I bought Fisher-Price in 1993 and Tyco cent of pre-tax profits to charitable causes and have won awards for social trading for around $21 per share, Toys in 1997, and sold The Learning Company in and environmental responsibility. Frank Lloyd Wright designed several of my but their market caps were, respec- buildings. Who am I? (Answer: SC Johnson) tively, $219 billion, $8 billion and 2000. I’m working with THQ to develop video $640 million. games based on my toys. Who am I? Write to Us! Send questions for Ask the Fool, Dumbest (or Smartest) Investments (up to 100 words), and your Trivia entries Got a question for the Fool? Send it in Know the answer? Send it to us with Foolish Trivia on the top and you’ll to [email protected] or via regular mail c/o this newspaper, attn: The — see Write to Us be entered into a drawing for a nifty prize! Motley Fool. Sorry, we can’t provide individual financial advice.