How Monster Beverage Shares Soared a Monster 100,000% in the Last 20 Years

Joe Weisenthal (0:10)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:15)

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:17)

Tracy, I have a new idea for an ETF that I think we should launch.

Tracy Alloway (0:25)

You and about a gazillion other people, but go on.

Joe Weisenthal (0:28)

So I think we should make a bros ETF, like a bro culture, I feel like, is a really winning formula.

Tracy Alloway (0:38)

So I think the basic...

Can you say bitch on air? I don't know. The basic bitch portfolio.

Joe Weisenthal (0:47)

You just did. So I guess so.

Tracy Alloway (0:49)

Sorry, everyone.

This is gonna be the first episode of Odd Lots that comes with a disclaimer about bad language.

The basic bitch ETF portfolio has been the sort of long running theme on a finance Twitter. And that's done pretty well, at least in 2020 So things like Pinterest, some of the makeup companies, those sorts of things, Starbucks. So I could see the flip side of that being a bros ETF. Sure. Gaming stocks.

Joe Weisenthal (1:18)

Yeah, gaming. So we know video games have done extremely well. I mean, that's just an incredible sector. Of course, back last summer, we did that episode about Domino's Pizza, which I think like, ordering pizza while you're playing video games, that's obviously part of it. I imagine there's some like sports elements. Oh, well, you could certainly put in Draft Kings and some of these online gambling, Pen Gaming, some of these online gambling names.

And there's also a beverage company that I think fits right into the portfolio and it's done extraordinarily well.

Tracy Alloway (1:53)

So I know it's one you're talking about. This has become one of your favorite companies, not just because the story around bro culture is quite interesting right now. Lots of people are playing more video games. We're all stuck at home. And so maybe you want to drink more of this particular beverage while you're gaming, but also because the returns on this one have just been absolutely stunning.

Joe Weisenthal (2:16)

Yeah, exactly right. So the company is Monster Beverage. You've almost certainly seen them like at any deli or grocery store or anything. They're known for their big cans of heavily caffeinated drinks, sugary, they have like super aggressive labels on them. It's like this sort of like very like macho, frankly, bro-y beverage.

And the stock has done phenomenally well, but depending on exactly what settings you use, it might be the single best performing stock in history or certainly over the last 20 or so years. I think it's up like 85,000% over the last 20 years or at one point it was.

Like, it's just unreal. We're talking like Bitcoin level returns. Actually, you could probably put Bitcoin in the ETF too, but we're talking like Bitcoin level returns for a company that sells sugary caffeinated beverages.

Tracy Alloway (3:15)

Right, and I think when most people think about the best performing stock of the past couple of decades, they're gonna think about Amazon or Google or Apple or something like that. Not many people are gonna think about a consumer facing beverage company. I have to tell you something. So I don't know much about Monster.

I've never had one of the energy drinks, although I am very aware of the branding and their advertising strategy has been a big part of their success, and I'm sure we're gonna get into that on the podcast. But I have to say, in the course of doing some research for this episode, I found the most amazing anecdote on Reddit.

Joe Weisenthal (3:56)

Oh, of course it came from Reddit.

That's perfect. What's the anecdote?

Tracy Alloway (4:01)

So I think it was on the Financial Independence Retirement Early Board, but it was some guy who said he invested $90,000 in Monster Energy drinks.

I think this was in 2010, he posted, and he said he'd invested five years ago. So basically he had a 500% increase on that $90,000 position, which made him a millionaire in the space of five years. And the best part of it was, so he wrote that in 2010, everyone on the message board basically said, you are absolutely crazy, I can't believe you have this huge chunk of portfolio of your portfolio in a single stock, you need to sell it right now. And of course, had he held on to it, I don't even know what it would be worth now, but like the big spike in Monster Energy came after 2010 So you can only imagine what 90K invested back in 2005 would look like after a 15 year monster run in Monster Energy.