To jump in or out of the stock

In any business, there are going to be all kinds of factors that happen next week, next month, next year, and so forth. But the really important thing is to be in the right business. The classic case is Coca-Cola, which went public in 1919. They initially sold stock at $40 a share. The next year, it went down to $19. Sugar prices had changed pretty dramatically after World War 1. So you would have lost half of your money one year later if you’d bought the stock when it first came public ; but if you owned that share today – and had reinvested all of your dividends – it would be worth about $1.8 million. We have had depressions. We have had wars. Sugar prices have gone up and down. A million things have happened. How much more fruitful is it for us to think about whether the product is likely to sustain itself and its economies than to try to be questioning whether to jump in or out of the stock ?