Need Stock that Did Extremely Well between 1979 and 2001

[TromboneAl]

In a book I'm writing, a man hides some stock certificates and other valuables and then travels forward in time from 1979 to about 2012.

I want one of the stocks to do incredibly well.

Can anyone name a stock that would fit the bill?

Thanks.

 

[marko]

Apple went public in 1980....might be able to get on some sort of pre-public offering. (?) They did kinda well.

 

[petershk]

You can go to buyupside.com and run their backrest on stocks. My gut would be coca cola, McDonalds, P&G, Exxon, etc. Apple is a really good one of you want the crazy hockey stick at the end . But you'd need a strong stomach to have held it in the late 80s and 90s so that might be good or bad depending on the story I guess

Lots of luck!

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[GrayHare]

Marlboro / Altria

 

[Henry Lili]

Maybe Intel or Berkshire

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[gromit]

In this 2012 article there is a list of best performers from 1982-2012. Topping the list was Home Depot. Apple was 11th. Best Stocks In The Past 30 Years | Retirement Investments — MyPlanIQ

Note: Home Depot didn't go public until 1981, so it may not be a good fit for the book.

 

[aaronc879]

$5000 worth of Walmart in 1980 would be worth $26 million today.

 

[nuisance]

In a bout of excessive planning a while ago I bought a db of historical stock returns. I've cobbled something together that will spit out stock returns between arbitrary dates.
Your topic and your message don't match, though. Do you want returns from 1979 to 2001, or 1979 to 2012?

 

[Running_Man]

seems obvious choice is Berkshire Hathaway, here is his letter describing holding at end of 1979

Chairman's Letter - 1979

 

[Fermion]

seems obvious choice is Berkshire Hathaway, here is his letter describing holding at end of 1979

Chairman's Letter - 1979

Wow, that quote suprises me as I always thought Warren was anti gold:

"One friendly but sharp-eyed commentator on Berkshire has pointed out that our book value at the end of 1964 would have bought about one-half ounce of gold and, fifteen years later, after we have plowed back all earnings along with much blood, sweat and tears, the book value produced will buy about the same half ounce."

 

[RockyMtn]

Nike? Kind of a cool story line. Is your guy a runner? He liked these shoes he tried, bought the stock. Made a mint.

 

[Running_Man]

Nike did not go public until 1980

 

[RockyMtn]

Nike did not go public until 1980

You're right. 1980 was the year. So instead the guy was an early investor into Blue Ribbon Sports because he likes the "waffle" shoes this company was making. It goes public in 1980 and he makes a butt load.

Worked for me! U of O class of 1980. Wasn't a pre ipo investor but I bought Blue Ribbon Sports in late 1980 after I got my first job out of college and I've done pretty good with it.

An old writer's saying...when the story is better than the truth...print the story!

 

[Running_Man]

ahhh.... actually in high school I had the pleasure of getting destroyed in races against Rudy Chappa who went on to be a VP for Nike

 

[RockyMtn]

just wish I would have kept my original waffle trainers from the 70's. Be worth about as much as my baseball card collection that my mom threw out!

 

[RockyMtn]

ahhh.... actually in high school I had the pleasure of getting destroyed in races against Rudy Chappa who went on to be a VP for Nike

Rudy and Alberto same freshman class as me. Got to know them both through a mutual friend who was on women's cross country team.

 

[alaska55]

One year ahead of Steve Scott owned him in XC, of course he smoked me in a 880 the only time i raced him on the track, he was a 440/880 in high school. He didn't move up to the mile til college.

 

[eta2020]

Marlboro / Altria

MO:
That is the one that popped in my mind that includes spin-off of Kraft and PM. Plus incredible amount of dividends from all 3 companies over those years.

 

[clifp]

seems obvious choice is Berkshire Hathaway, here is his letter describing holding at end of 1979

Chairman's Letter - 1979

Yup that would be my first choice. The stock was trading about $300 share so you'd have 700x increase. The stockholder meeting in 1979 had 20 attendees.

 

[MichaelB]

seems obvious choice is Berkshire Hathaway, here is his letter describing holding at end of 1979

Chairman's Letter - 1979

+2

It's up around 900x since then. The key is no dividends. A year later and Apple IPO'd, not a bad run either.

 

[TromboneAl]

>Your topic and your message don't match, though.

Oops, thanks. I meant 2012.

I'm not finding stock prices for BRKA prior to 1980.

I think I may go with Walmart or Danaher.

How does it work with stock certificates? Where do the dividends go?

I guess you can get one stock certificate for many shares.

So, in 2012 he's got these stock certificate(s). They are worth 25 million. He can go into a bank or brokerage and get the money? Can he say "I found these in the attic, please redeem them"?

So, he buys $10,000 of Walmart (WMT) stock on 9/1/79 at $.09 per share. On 9/1/2012 the share price is $67.45. He takes it in and gets 7.5 million into his account, or do the dividends get in there somehow? What about stock splits?

 

[TromboneAl]

Research on dividends:

How do you receive dividends when you own a paper stock certificate?

Best Answer: The certificate contains the name of the registered owner of that certificate. When dividends are paid the checks are mailed to the registered owner (the name on the certificate).
If the shareholder's address in no longer valid, and the checks are returned to the agent, the agent will mark the shareholders list as such and hold the check until a valid address is received. If after eighteen months or 3 years, the agent is obligated to escheat the money to the stock of domicile last known for the owner. The owner can always receive this money back if they notify the state and provide proof of identity.

So, I think the guy is going to be SOL concerning the dividends. There's no way he can prove his identity, since the ages won't match.

 

[MooreBonds]

So, I think the guy is going to be SOL concerning the dividends. There's no way he can prove his identity, since the ages won't match.

You could either have him simply say "oh well" with the dividends...or, since BRK is an obvious candidate for no dividends in pretty much most of it's entire history (the early partnership may have made distributions in the 60s), it would stand out as a pretty good selection in 1979 to avoid the issues of the dividends not being received.

From a "realistic" perspective, 1979 is just a few years after the oil embargo/oil price spikes. Back then, oil might seem like a more natural choice to pick for holding for 30 years, rather than some random IPO that no one heard of and would have almost no reason to buy.

 

[nuisance]

Here are the top 10 gainers, as measured by "Adjusted Closing Price" (which accounts for splits; I'm not sure about dividends), from July 2, 1979 to July 2, 2012:

NYSE:XOM       0.75  80.34 10612%
NYSE:GD        0.56  62.10 10989%
NYSE:PHI       0.46  55.61 11989%
NYSE:PEP       0.55  66.79 12044%
NYSE:KO        0.30  37.26 12320%
NYSE:MCD       0.64  81.79 12680%
NYSE:CL        0.35  49.33 13994%
NYSE:SYY       0.13  27.71 21215%
NYSE:MO        0.06  31.56 52500%
NYSE:WMT       0.07  65.68 93729%

Indeed Walmart is #1 by a wide margin.

And just because I think it's neat, here are the 10 worst losers:

NYSE:NAV     390.00  27.09   -93%
NYSE:UIS     198.55  19.00   -90%
NYSE:FAC       6.33   1.25   -80%
NYSE:GFF       9.95   8.40   -16%
NYSE:MEG       3.76   4.42    18%
NYSE:FRM       4.30   5.20    21%
NYSE:NYT       3.76   7.87   109%
NYSE:TPC       5.66  12.67   124%
NYSE:XRX       3.29   7.51   128%
NYSE:FUR       4.63  11.03   138%

Median:

NASDAQ:TXN     1.14  26.58  2232%

Note that there are just 94 stocks overall. (Maybe my database is incomplete? Only looking at NASDAQ and NYSE.)

 

[TromboneAl]

When I go here, the first price they have for BRKA is in 1980.

He'll be out of luck regarding splits also, so BRKA is looking good (never split).