You want to know what you could have bought back in 1989 that would have gone on to perform better than Wells Fargo? The world’s largest sodium bicarbonate producer, Church & Dwight. While Wells Fargo compounded at 14.75% annually since 1989–turning $25,000 into $973,000–Church & Dwight has managed to compound at a rate of 15.95% annually since 1989 to turn the same hypothetical $25,000 investment into $1.284 million today. I could find no year-over-year measuring period in which the profits at Church & Dwight have failed to grow (I reviewed data back to 1995).
I had been slow to cover Church & Dwight much on the site for two reasons. The first is that, by the time I really discovered the company, it was trading at a strong premium. I think I really recognized the strength of the business back in 2014. The problem is that it was trading at … Read the rest of this article!