Page 294 - How to Make Money in Stocks Trilogy

172 A WINNING SYSTEM

New Products That Created Super Successes

The way a company can achieve enormous success, thereby enjoying large
gains in its stock price, is by introducing dramatic new products into the
marketplace. I’m not talking about a new formula for dish soap. I’m talking
about products that revolutionize the way we live. Here are just a few of the
thousands of entrepreneurial companies that drove America and, during
their time in the sun, created millions of jobs and a higher standard of living
in the United States than in other areas of the world:
1. Northern Pacific was chartered as the first transcontinental railroad.
Around 1900, its stock rocketed more than 4,000% in just 197 weeks.
2. General Motors began as the Buick Motor Company. In 1913–1914,
GM stock increased 1,368%.
3. RCA, by 1926, had captured the market for commercial radio. Then,
from June 1927, when the stock traded at $50, it advanced on a presplit
basis to $575 before the market collapsed in 1929.
4. After World War II, Rexall’s new Tupperware division helped push the
company’s stock to $50 a share in 1958, from $16.
5. Thiokol came out with new rocket fuels for missiles in 1957–1959, pro-
pelling its shares from $48 to the equivalent of $355.
6. Syntex marketed the oral contraceptive pill in 1963. In six months, the
stock soared from $100 to $550.
7. McDonald’s, with low-priced fast-food franchising, snowballed from
1967 to 1971 to create a 1,100% profit for stockholders.

8. Levitz Furniture’s stock soared 660% in 1970–1971 on the popularity
of the company’s giant warehouse discount-furniture centers.
9. Houston Oil & Gas, with a major new oil field, ran up 968% in 61
weeks in 1972–1973 and picked up another 367% in 1976.
10. Computervision’s stock advanced 1,235% in 1978–1980 with the intro-
duction of its new CAD-CAM factory-automation equipment.
11. Wang Labs’ Class B shares grew 1,350% in 1978–1980 on the develop-
ment of its new word-processing office machines.
12. Price Company’s stock shot up more than 15 times in 1982–1986 with
the opening of a southern California chain of innovative wholesale
warehouse membership stores.
13. Amgen developed two successful new biotech drugs, Epogen and Neu-
pogen, and the stock raced ahead from $60 in 1990 to the equivalent of
$460 in early 1992.