What if you bought ExxonMobil in 1990?
US Industry · Oil. The hindsight answer, year by year, against the only benchmark that matters.
Could you have picked it? Play9.6× · S&P 500 same money: $19,429
$1,000 in ExxonMobil at the start of 1990 would be worth about $9,583 today. A plain S&P 500 index fund over the same years would have made more — the boring option won.
The story
ExxonMobil was created in 1999 when Exxon bought Mobil, reuniting two pieces of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil. Under CEO Lee Raymond and then Rex Tillerson, it was known for discipline and returns on capital. As oil prices rose from the early 2000s toward a record in 2008, Exxon became the world's most valuable company and posted the largest annual profits then recorded by any US company.
The 2010s were less kind. Its 2010 purchase of XTO Energy bet on natural gas just as US shale crushed gas prices, and the 2014 oil price crash cut profits. Climate investigations and lawsuits multiplied, and in August 2020 Exxon was removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average after nearly a century. In 2021 a tiny hedge fund, Engine No. 1, won three board seats in a landmark proxy fight. Then the cycle turned: Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent energy prices soaring in 2022, Exxon earned a record profit, and it bought Pioneer Natural Resources to expand in the Permian Basin. Guyana's offshore discoveries became a crown jewel.
The lesson: Commodity producers' stock prices follow commodity prices more than management skill; buying after a price spike often means buying the peak.
$1,000 invested at the start of each year
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be | Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | $12.00 | $9,583 | $19,429 | 9.6× |
| 1995 | $15.00 | $7,667 | $14,783 | 7.7× |
| 2000 | $40.00 | $2,875 | $4,626 | 2.9× |
| 2003 | $35.00 | $3,286 | $7,727 | 3.3× |
| 2005 | $51.00 | $2,255 | $5,763 | 2.3× |
| 2007 | $76.00 | $1,513 | $4,789 | 1.5× |
| 2008 | $93.00 | $1,237 | $4,626 | 1.2× |
| 2010 | $68.00 | $1,691 | $6,071 | 1.7× |
| 2012 | $85.00 | $1,353 | $5,312 | 1.4× |
| 2015 | $92.00 | $1,250 | $3,301 | 1.2× |
| 2018 | $84.00 | $1,369 | $2,519 | 1.4× |
| 2020 | $70.00 | $1,643 | $2,092 | 1.6× |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
Best entry point in our set: 1990, turning $1,000 into $9,583. The S&P 500 from that same year: $19,429.
On this day
Now try it without hindsight. The wheel decides the year and the asset class, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick, and we simulate to today. ExxonMobil is one of 258 positions on the wheel — including the ones that went to zero.
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