One more.
----
October 30, 1997
Market Gyrations Are Unable
To Unnerve Indiana Investors
By ROBERT L. ROSE
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
GREENFIELD, Ind. -- When the stock market took its nose dive this
week, Bob Campbell's brokerage office on East Main Street here turned
into a beehive.
As his two office administrators struggled to keep up with the calls,
customers dropped by to see what in the world was going on. Some, who
had been with the 43-year-old stock broker since he opened his Edward
Jones office in this Indianapolis suburb in 1980, were sitting on huge gains.
Time to sell?
Not for the Eli Lilly & Co. official who used the occasion to shift
$100,000 into four different stock funds Monday. Not for the young
woman who stopped by after work Tuesday to write a check for $2,500
for a mutual-fund investment.
And not for Tom Bloodgood, a retiree who was in the hospital for surgery
when the market started heading sharply lower last week. In one of those
rare cases of perfect timing, he moved $23,000 into mutual funds and
stock Monday and Tuesday.
The activity at the one-story Edward Jones office in this town of 14,000
affords a small-town explanation of the market's abrupt snapback. By the
end of the day Tuesday, the verdict was almost unanimous: Out of 35
transactions the office handled on that hectic day, a stunning 34 were to
buy stocks or mutual funds. Wednesday, the buying continued.
The sentiment was similar in the 3,702 U.S. and Canadian offices of
Edward Jones, the St. Louis-based firm that makes its living catering to
individual investors. For every stock sale Monday, the firm says its clients
made five buys. Tuesday and Wednesday, it was more like 10 buys for
every sell order, a spokeswoman said.
Most Edward Jones offices have one broker, but Mr. Campbell has help:
Joe Smith, a former local bank president who came aboard in 1996. The
office has more than 3,000 accounts, but perhaps 700 to 800 have active
trading in a given year. "The Jones philosophy is the same as mine," says
Mr. Smith, explaining how he ended up as a stockbroker at age 48 after
22 years as a banker. "It's conservative. You make a good investment.
You hold it."
When Chris and Christy Brumfield stopped by to see Mr. Campbell
Wednesday, they confessed to some worries: paying off their boat loan,
preparing for the birth of their first child and saving for retirement.
The market's gyrations? "I didn't even consider it," says Mr. Brumfield,
who works in his family's swimming pool business. "We're not out to make
a bunch of money in a month."
Mr. Bloodgood, the retiree, says he was waiting for more than three
months to shift money from his money-market fund to the stock market.
When the market broke, he pounced. "I would never get a call from Bob
saying 'you'd better bail out,' " says Mr. Bloodgood.
After nearly two decades, Mr. Campbell has developed an easy rapport
with his clients, many of whom are also his friends. When he picks up his
green message slips and returns phone calls, he rarely introduces himself.
They know his voice.
"Hi Carole," he says, returning a call Tuesday afternoon. He has put on his
telephone headset and settled into a leather chair in front of his computer
screen. "Did Brad tell you I talked about you at the seminar? Ten years
and it's still my favorite story." (That's the one about how she signed on as
a client in 1987, just in time to witness the biggest one-day percentage
decline in stock-market history.)
Although the value of the customer's accounts for her grandchildren are
down sharply in recent days, Mr. Campbell reminds her they are still up
11% to 15% for the year. She decides to shift another $1,500 into each
account.
"Jeffrey, how you doin' bud?" Mr. Campbell asks another customer. The
customer, who also happens to be his barber, says he's praying for him
amid the markets ups and downs.
"Thank you. Prayers are accepted," says Mr. Campbell. The barber isn't
ready to buy. He asks Mr. Campbell to "pull me a thing" -- a research
report -- on a technology company he's eyeing. When Mr. Campbell
graduated from Ball State University in 1975 with a degree in journalism,
he wanted to be a reporter. But that was after Watergate, and the supply
of reporters outstripped demand. "I couldn't find a job," he says. Instead,
he helped manage a McDonald's restaurant for nearly five years before
turning to Edward Jones.
Today, it's hard to draw a line between his job and the rest of his life. He's
a past president of the Greenfield Chamber of Commerce and an active
member of the Rotary Club. "When people think of Rotary in Greenfield,
they think of Bob," says Ed Veenhuizen, the current Rotary president (and
client of Mr. Campbell).
Last week, 30 people dropped by for the seminar on the October 1987
stock-market crash. The message: Use the opportunity to buy more
stocks. Mr. Campbell handed out an Edward Jones report that asked
customers: "Are You Ready for Another 500-point Drop in the Stock
Market?"
Turns out they were. |
