Colorado Springs – They call themselves The Bullish Babes – an investment club of nearly a dozen Colorado Springs women who, dare I say, are slouching toward their golden years.
Their monthly meeting is usually at a Sunrise Assisted Living center.
“They treat us like royalty there,” said Bullish Babe Carol Mark, 54, a police dispatcher. “We own their stock.”
Investment clubs have been disappearing since the bust of the bull market. In 1998, more than 37,000 clubs were registered with Better Investing, formerly called the National Association of Investors Corp. Today, there are about 19,600.
The Babes, however, made it through the bust with stocks such as Walgreens, Bed Bath & Beyond, Home Depot and Helen of Troy, a marketer of personal-care products. The Babes are about to celebrate their 10th anniversary of enthusiastic investing. And they are featured in a 13-part public-TV series, “MoneyTrack,” which is airing nationally and begins at 5:30 a.m. Monday on Denver’s KBDI-Channel 12.
Still, I had to ask: Are the Bullish Babes ever bearish?
“Only when we did that calendar,” said Kris Hill, 58, who comes the closest of all her colleagues to full frontal nudity in the Bullish Babes 2005 Calendar.
Inspired by the 2003 film “Calendar Girls,” the Babes have no regrets displaying their “babeness” in full color.
“As my mother would say, ‘We’re gonna be a long time dead,”‘ said Judie Maurelli, 61, an insurance agent who posed on a Harley in a red bra and a leather vest.
“Let me tell you something about these girls,” said Helen Levine, 67, in a stately Southern accent honed by many years in Louisiana and Texas. “I thought that they were out of their minds.”
Levine, who retired from a 26-year career in early-childhood education, got talked into showing some skin anyway.
“I never saw ‘Calendar Girls.’ I have never told any of my friends about the calendar. I have never tried to sell the calendar,” she said, laughing.
The Babes sold 300 calendars for nearly $5,000 to raise money for the American Heart Association. The gift is in memory of Hill’s husband, Wesley, who died in May 2004 in a car accident. At Christmas, the Babes also adopt needy families and serve wine and dinner at Sunrise.
“We come together in tragedy, and we celebrate triumphs,” said Sandy Prebeck, 50, who leads the club.
The Babes have yielded a cumulative annual return of 7.34 percent over their 10 years, after all expenses. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index delivered 9.5 percent over the same period.
They are not exactly the Beardstown Ladies, a club in Beardstown, Ill., whose purported success inspired the rapid growth of investment clubs in the 1990s.
The Beardstown Ladies claimed a 23 percent average annual return from 1984 to 1993 and wrote a series of books offering homespun investment advice.
Unfortunately, an audit revealed errors and showed that the Beardstown Ladies’ returns were 9.1 percent. Despite a best-selling book, they had underperformed the S&P for a decade.
The Babes, by contrast, don’t boast. They are content to be through the rough times with an overall gain in their $75,000 stock portfolio.
Today, about 54 percent of all investment clubs are for women only, according to Better Investing.
A recent study by Merrill Lynch Investment Managers suggests women are better at investing than men. The study concluded that men know more about investing, but women do better because they are quicker to dump their dog stocks.
Noting a lag in earnings and revenue growth, the Babes dumped Krispy Kreme at $36, long before news of accounting and regulatory troubles broke.
The Babes also dodged a dip in Pfizer, getting out before two of its popular arthritis drugs – Bextra and Celebrex – made news for causing heart attacks.
“My mother took (Celebrex) with (a blood thinner), and it almost killed her,” said Judy Carty, 61, who had championed the stock in her club. “I loved Pfizer for too long,” she concedes. “But I learned my lesson and finally relinquished it.”
Not even the Bullish Babes can be bullish all the time.
Al Lewis’ column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Friday. Respond to Al at , 303-820-1967, or alewis@denverpost.com.
