What if you bought Shell in 1990?
World · Netherlands/UK. The hindsight answer, year by year, against the only benchmark that matters.
Could you have picked it? Play9.4× · S&P 500 same money: $19,429
$1,000 in Shell at the start of 1990 would be worth about $9,375 today. A plain S&P 500 index fund over the same years would have made more — the boring option won.
The story
Shell, long known as Royal Dutch Shell, is the Anglo-Dutch oil major built from a 1907 alliance. In 2004 it admitted it had overstated its proven oil and gas reserves by around a fifth, an embarrassing scandal that cost its chairman his job and led to fines. In response, the two parent companies merged into a single structure in 2005.
The share price mostly tracked the oil cycle: up through the 2000s commodity boom, then a long stretch going sideways or down. In 2016 Shell bought the British gas producer BG Group, a bet on liquefied natural gas that made it the leading LNG trader. The 2020 oil price collapse led Shell to cut its dividend for the first time since the Second World War. In 2022 it dropped the Royal Dutch from its name and moved its tax residence and headquarters to London, ending its Dutch dual identity. The energy crisis that year produced record profits and drove the shares to new highs. For anyone who bought at the 2008 peak, a large share of the return came from dividends rather than price gains.
The lesson: With mature cash-generating companies, much of the return comes from dividends, so price charts alone can make a decent investment look like a lost decade.
$1,000 invested at the start of each year
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be | Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | $8.00 | $9,375 | $19,429 | 9.4× |
| 1995 | $12.00 | $6,250 | $14,783 | 6.2× |
| 2000 | $30.00 | $2,500 | $4,626 | 2.5× |
| 2003 | $22.00 | $3,409 | $7,727 | 3.4× |
| 2005 | $32.00 | $2,344 | $5,763 | 2.3× |
| 2007 | $41.00 | $1,829 | $4,789 | 1.8× |
| 2008 | $42.00 | $1,786 | $4,626 | 1.8× |
| 2010 | $30.00 | $2,500 | $6,071 | 2.5× |
| 2012 | $36.00 | $2,083 | $5,312 | 2.1× |
| 2015 | $33.00 | $2,273 | $3,301 | 2.3× |
| 2018 | $35.00 | $2,143 | $2,519 | 2.1× |
| 2020 | $30.00 | $2,500 | $2,092 | 2.5× |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
Best entry point in our set: 1990, turning $1,000 into $9,375. The S&P 500 from that same year: $19,429.
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. Shell is one of 258 positions on the wheel — including the ones that went to zero.
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