tocks

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (AP) --

It took a record year for the stock market, but human beings have finally beaten a chimpanzee in a stock-picking contest.

The San Francisco Chronicle pitted Maggie, a performing chimp at Marine World-Africa USA, against six professional money managers, in picking stocks for the period Feb. 2, 1995 to Feb. 6, 1996.

Maggie, who made selected five companies by throwing darts at the newspaper's stock pages, made a monkey out of herself.

Three of her picks dropped despite the bullish performance of the market, and her return was minus 25.4 percent, to finish dead last.

She probably should have consulted with her Swedish cousin Ola, who in 1993 beat out five brokers, raising the value of her imaginary stake by 15 percent in only a month.

Breathing sighs of relief in the Chronicle contest were the six brokers -- although only two of them managed to better the Standard & Poor 500 index for the period, which rose 44.2 percent.

For the record, the winner was Ron Elijah, manager of the Robertson, Stephens Value + Growth Fund, whose five picks were up 54.3 percent on average.

His best stock was Charles Schwab, up 81.1 percent.

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