30 November 1999: Exxon and Mobil complete their merger
Exxon and Mobil completed their merger, creating ExxonMobil, then the world's largest publicly traded oil company. The deal, announced in late 1998 when oil had fallen near $10 a barrel, reunited two pieces of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, which had been broken up in 1911. Oil prices soon rose, and ExxonMobil became one of the most profitable companies in history.
The lesson: The best deals in cyclical industries are often struck at the bottom of the cycle.
What it meant for investors
$1,000 in ExxonMobil at the start of 2000 → $2,875 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 2.9 times the money, but $1,751 less than a plain index fund made over the same years.
What ExxonMobil teaches: Commodity producers' stock prices follow commodity prices more than management skill; buying after a price spike often means buying the peak.
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | $40.00 | $2,875 | $4,626 |
| 2003 | $35.00 | $3,286 | $7,727 |
| 2005 | $51.00 | $2,255 | $5,763 |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
What if you bought ExxonMobil? 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.
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