28 August 1898: Brad's Drink becomes Pepsi-Cola
Pharmacist Caleb Bradham of New Bern, North Carolina renamed his fountain soda, Brad's Drink, to Pepsi-Cola. The early company went bankrupt more than once before it found its footing, but it eventually became Coca-Cola's great rival and expanded into snacks through its merger with Frito-Lay. A better name helped, but persistence, distribution and decades of marketing did most of the work.
The lesson: Great brands are built over decades of persistence, and early failures do not doom a good idea.
What it meant for investors
$1,000 in PepsiCo at the start of 1990 → $18,750 today, vs $19,429 in the S&P 500.
We start the clock at the start of 1990, the first year in our price data after the event. That is 18.8 times the money, but $679 less than a plain index fund made over the same years.
What PepsiCo teaches: Diversification within a company can dampen volatility, but no portfolio of brands is immune to shifts in consumer tastes and health trends.
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | $8.00 | $18,750 | $19,429 |
| 1995 | $17.00 | $8,824 | $14,783 |
| 2000 | $35.00 | $4,286 | $4,626 |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
What if you bought PepsiCo? Every starting year and the full story →
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
Play Sixty-40