Change the Way You Think About Business Ownership and You Can Change Your Life

Shortly after World War I, Raymond Poincaré, the Prime Minister of France, decided against partnering with Royal Dutch Shell to fund the energy needs of the French people.  One of his military commanders, Colonel Ernest Mercier, worked with 90 banks and businesses to establish a new oil company called French Petroleum Company (er, technically, Française des Pétroles Compagnie since they weren’t speaking English).  The name might sound prosaic but keep in mind this was the era of “General Electric” and “Standard Oil”.  The new undertaking began operations on March 28th, 1924. Today, that business is known as Total, S.A. and it is one of the six supermajor oil powers on the planet.

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The Opportunity Cost of the Car You Drive Is One of the Biggest Financial Decisions You’ll Ever Make

The great thing about making decisions in life through the lens of decision trees and opportunity cost is that it allows you to focus on what you actually want. You tend to protect yourself against giving up what you really want for what you want right now.  Everything in life has an opportunity cost.  It doesn’t…

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You Can Still Get Rich and Make Money In a Terrible Economy with a Miserable Stock Market

Towards the back of the most recent General Electric annual report is an interesting graph.  It shows what an investor would have experienced by putting $100 into three different investments: GE shares, the S&P 500, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average.  It assumes that dividends were reinvested in each respective investment when they were distributed.  How were you rewarded for six years of patient investing, assuming you added no fresh cash outside of the dividend reinvestment?  Take a look.

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Kennon-Green & Co. Fiduciary Financial Advisor, Wealth Management, Global Value Investing