For 30 years, the members of the FTTS Investment Club in Sacramento, Calif., have been buying, selling and holding stocks, a milestone that puts the all-women club among the elite of investing groups nationwide that have stuck together through the financial market’s up and down cycles.
When they started in 1983, all 16 were mothers and tennis-playing friends at Arden Hills Country Club who admittedly “knew nothing” about stock picking. They formed their group, officially called From Tennis to Stocks, or FTTS, with hopes of getting a handle on the sometimes-bewildering world of investing.
“We’d depended on our husbands for investing and we thought we should learn something about it on our own,” said Ann Stubbe, a mother of three who ran a Sacramento catering business.
Three decades later, they’re conversant in price earnings ratios, stock growth and other investing concepts. They glean details on their current holdings and potential new investments from newspapers and financial publications such as Barron’s and ValueLine. Over the years, they’ve had their share of losers, but their current portfolio of nine stocks is loaded with some solid winners.
Now in their 70s, the 15 original members (one died this year) say friendship is their biggest asset.
“It’s a sisterhood, not just a stock club,” said Barbara Kahl, a retired pharmacist’s wife in Rancho Murieta, Calif.
But they’ve also enjoyed some purely monetary rewards. Each time the group’s stock portfolio hits $100,000, they cash out a bonus to each member. In August, they issued their 13th payout of $1,000 apiece, bringing their collective total to more than $207,000.
Now heading into their 31st year, they show no signs of slowing down.
“That’s a very impressive number. It puts them in an elite group, in terms of their staying power,” said Dennis Genord, director of education/chapter development for BetterInvesting.org, a Michigan-based nonprofit that oversees more than 5,000 investment clubs nationwide. “When it comes to investing, it’s all about choosing a methodology and sticking with it over the long term. That’s what [FTTS] is demonstrating. Our hats go off to that group.”
Among Better Investing’s 5,000 clubs, Genord said 69 reached the 30-year mark this year. The longest-running: five clubs that have been together for 55 years.
Investing clubs vary in how they operate.
Some simply meet to discuss investing and swap stock tips but do their own individual investments. Others pool their money and follow more exacting guidelines from organizations such as Better Investing, which offers online tools, classes and newsletters.
In the early years, before computerized spreadsheets, the FTTS women spent “very tedious” hours charting a stock’s five-year growth in revenue and earnings per share.
“The first years were very lean because we didn’t know what we were doing. Every stock we picked went down,” recalled Patti Gantenbein, the group’s current treasurer. But determined to learn more, they signed up together for a night class on investing at American River College. Eventually they got more disciplined on investing technique, following Better Investing’s stock-picking guidelines.
Initially, they used a broker but today maintain a Charles Schwab account where they can buy and sell stocks at a discount themselves. Each puts in $30 a month.
Over the years, “money became secondary,” said Gantenbein, a retired medical office manager. Missing a meeting became unthinkable: “No one wanted to miss the fun.”
Their investing adventures have carried them far from Sacramento. They’ve traveled - three times - to Wall Street in New York City, including a visit to the floor of the commodities exchange.
The group has endured through widowhood, divorce, deaths and remarriages. After raising kids, many continued or went on to varied careers: travel agent, real estate broker, school administrative assistant, nonprofit director, medical office manager, dress shop owner.
The Sacramento women started their club the same year - 1983 - as the Beardstown Ladies investment group in Illinois, which skyrocketed to national fame when their book,The Beardstown Ladies’ Common-Sense Investment Guide, hit the market.
Today, in tiny Beardstown, population 6,000, only four of the original 15 members are still alive. But a number of daughters, sisters and in-laws - all women - have kept the group alive.
“We’re not making money hand over fist, but it is educational,” said Carol McCombs, 64, a second-generation member who joined her mother in the club in 1993. Each month, they share research and decide if “we’re going to buy, sell or ‘hold’ - the magic word.”
Currently, the Beardstown Ladies have a portfolio of 16 or so stocks, including Medtronic, Pepsi and a few shares of Apple. One of their long-standing stocks is Wolverine World Wide Inc., the maker of Hush Puppies shoes and Harley-Davidson boots.
Unlike Sacramento’s FTTS group, the Beardstown women never take a withdrawal, unless a member has a financial emergency or special occasion.
Most of the Beardstown Ladies, she says, consider their investment akin to a long-term savings account.
And like FTTS, it’s a social bond that keeps the group together. “You could sit home on your computer and do this, but it’s more fun to learn together,” said McCombs, whose sister in-law is also a member.
For its part, the Sacramento group operates far more informally these days.
Members are free to suggest a stock the group might consider buying. At their December meeting, Kahl described a recent visit to a Tesla showroom in San Diego with her son and daughter-in-law and recommended the electric-car company as a potential investment. A motion was made and after a short debate, the group voted - unanimously - to sell 85 shares of Home Depot and buy 50 shares of Tesla Motors Inc., priced at $143 a share.
Their biggest blockbuster: MasterCard Inc., which they first bought in 2006. Back then it was $63.85 a share; today, it’s selling at roughly $813.
“The ladies will never sell that stock,” Gantenbein said with a chuckle. “It’s like selling a child: It’s just not gonna happen.”
Business, Pages 61 on 01/12/2014