Were there any stocks that survived the crash of 1929 and did extremely well during the depression era?

star_gazer

The short answer: In 1930, 1931 and 1932, nowhere. There was no real refuge in the storm; even Benjamin Graham, the great value investor, lost 60% over those three years. According to CRSP, only one industry had positive returns from 1930 through 1932: logging. The two stocks in that tiny sector, Diamond Match and Mengel Co., whittled out a cumulative gain of 40% for the three-year period. Diamond turned timber into matchsticks; Mengel made trees into packing materials, primarily for daily necessities like tobacco and soap. To find a major sector with significantly positive returns, CRSP needed to stretch our measurement period into a fourth year, 1933, when the market finally rebounded partway from its earlier losses by rising a record 54%. Even then, out of 120 industries, only 13 managed to generate gains from 1930 through 1933. The only clear winner: cheap vices. Among the sectors with positive returns were cigarettes, cigars and tobacco, sugar and confectionery products, and fats and oils, which each gained between 1.6% and 7.5% annually. Those gains were better than they look, because deflation raised their purchasing power by an annual average of more than 6% over this period. It seems there was good money to be made investing in guilty pleasures that people could afford even in the hardest of times: sweets, smokes and fried food. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123456259622485781.html Apr 03 11, 11:17 PM