(MONEY Magazine) – ALL 12 INVESTMENTS--SIX STOCKS, THREE CLOSED-END FUNDS, two bonds and one mutual fund--that our May 1995 cover story tagged as likely to double your money in five years are well along to reaching that goal. On average, they posted a total return of 33% from April 1, 1995 to March 1 of this year, outpacing the 31% return of the S&P 500. The leader of the pack, Boeing, is up a stratospheric 53.2%--more than halfway to a double already. Even the comparative laggard, Templeton Dragon Fund, has advanced a respectable 19.1%, surpassing in 11 months the 15% annual gain needed to double in five years (the table at right shows the performance of all 12 picks).

Our two stars were stocks suggested by Susan Byrne (pictured below), manager of the $23 million Westwood Equity Fund in Dallas. In addition to Boeing, she steered us to defense contractor Lockheed Martin, up 47.4%. "Everything we had looked for in the companies has come true," she says. Boeing, for example, has enjoyed a pickup in orders, especially for its new 737s, which are quieter and more fuel efficient than previous models. Lockheed Martin, created from the March 1995 merger of defense giants Lockheed and Martin Marietta, has quickly lopped redundant operations to boost returns. Byrne recommends hanging on to both stocks but cautions that in light of their run-up, people who have new money to invest may find that other stocks offer greater immediate potential (see the stocks on page 107).

The third strongest showing came from the Greyhound Lines 10% bond maturing in 2001, which has returned 43.9%. Richard Lehmann, editor of the Income Securities Advisor newsletter ($165 a year; 800-472-2680), who chose the bond for us, says that the company's outlook improved after its chief competitor, Amtrak, announced service cutbacks last year. Lehmann's other favorite, the General Motors Acceptance Corp. zero-coupon bond maturing in 2012, has risen 31.1% thanks mainly to a decline in long-term interest rates to 6.4% from about 8% last spring (bond prices rise when rates fall, and vice versa). "To some extent we were lucky," says Lehmann. "We thought these would be a sure shot for doubling in five years, but who would've thought they'd earn so much in one?"

John Snyder, lead manager of the $1.6 billion Hancock Sovereign Investors Fund, stands by his choice of Abbott Laboratories, the slow stock in our stable. He notes that intense price competition in two of Abbott's major markets, medical diagnostic instruments and nutritional products, held the company's 1995 earnings growth to 13%, which was at the low end of analysts' expectations. But he still thinks the stock will double by 2000. We agree and cite it in the accompanying story (see page105).

Our mutual fund selection, $300 million Wasatch Aggressive Equity, was another relative disappointment, gaining only 21.2%, vs. 31.8% for the typical aggressive growth fund. We chose the fund because its portfolio had one of the highest earnings growth rates of all small-company funds. But several of its major holdings "fell off a cliff," says Morningstar analyst Russ Kinnel. Among them: furniture retailer Heilig-Meyers, which suffered an unexpected slowdown in sales growth over the past six months. But investors in small-cap funds like Wasatch Aggressive have to be prepared for such setbacks and hope that over the long term the portfolio will have more big winners than big losers. As for our other picks, all the pros who provided them continue to recommend them today. --Jeanhee Kim