In its August 14, 2000, issue, Fortune went out on a limb with an article titled “10 Stocks to Last the Decade.” The story described a “buy and forget” portfolio meant to capitalize on overarching trends the magazine predicted would dominate the next ten years. It recommended two companies in each of four categories -- media (Viacom, Univision), finance (Charles Schwab, Morgan Stanley), technology (Broadcom, Oracle) and telecommunications (Nokia, Nortel) -- as well as Genentech and, ahem, Enron.
An investor building a portfolio with these stocks would have wanted to forget about it, all right, but not for the reason the magazine intended. From the magazine’s issue date through the end of 2009, precisely one stock, Genentech, rose in value. The next-best performer, Oracle, was down 34%. Enron shares were worthless and Nortel shares very nearly so. Overall, an equally weighted portfolio of the ten stocks would have lost 44%. Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index (without dividends) was a big winner in comparison, down only 24% over the same period.
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