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I'm not sure that your side note is a good example. If you owned shares in the American Can Company, you would have then owned shares in Primerica and would no

I'm not sure that your side note is a good example. If you owned shares in the American Can Company, you would have then owned shares in Primerica and would now own shares in Citigroup which was only bumped out of the DJIA in 2009. Several of the mining companies were bought out. The Texas Company is Texaco. United States Rubber Company became Uniroyal and was bought out by Michelin and Continental. Sure, some like Studebaker and some of the locomotive companies collapsed and would have been a total loss, but it's entirely likely that holding all of those original companies would have made you a whole lot of money.

nostrademons 8y ago
You also have to worry about bankruptcies, where even if the company is not liquidated, the shareholders are usually wiped out and the company recapitalized among debtholders. Texaco went bankrupt in 1987, for example - while it's part of Chevron now, the people who actually owned the stocks that were purchased were largely the bankruptcy creditors. Western Union went bankrupt in 1987 and 1991, Citigroup nearly went bankrupt in 2009 and was recapitalized with the U.S. government becoming a major shareholder (and diluting the existing shareholders).