15 February 1955: GE announces man-made diamonds
General Electric announced it had created synthetic diamonds in its lab using extreme heat and pressure. They were small and industrial, not jewelry, but they quickly found uses in cutting and drilling tools. Decades later, lab-grown gems would challenge the natural diamond trade itself, puncturing the idea that a diamond's value comes from scarcity. Turns out the rock was easier to copy than the marketing.
The lesson: Scarcity can be engineered away; value built only on rarity is more fragile than it looks.
What it meant for investors
$1,000 in General Electric at the start of 2000 → $737 today, vs $4,626 in the S&P 500.
We start the clock at the start of 2000, the first year in our price data after the event. That is a loss of $263, while a plain index fund over the same years made $3,626.
What General Electric teaches: Earnings that look too smooth often hide leverage or accounting; the market eventually pays for transparency and punishes complexity.
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | $380 | $737 | $4,626 |
| 2003 | $190 | $1,474 | $7,727 |
| 2005 | $290 | $966 | $5,763 |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
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More General Electric history
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
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