Can I get rich?
I don’t know the outcomes of any specific/major sporting events. My knowledge of dates if fuzzy at best. Anything that’s not “common knowledge” in 2010 is beyond me. If I wait long enough, I can invest in Microsoft or bet on Secretariat, but in the period between, say, 1875 and 1950, do I have enough knowledge of future events to get rich somehow?
Yes, I think you could probably pick up some prime real estate for cheap and then either develop it or sell it after sitting on for a while. Avoid the Dust Bowl because you don’t want to get stuck with worthless land just as the Great Depression hits. That’s the period where you have to play it safe and make sure your investments are Wall Street proof.
Move to California and buy Hollywood cheap. Beat Bob Hope to the San Fernando Valley. War-profiteer the Spanish-American War. Join Dole and take over Hawaii. Invest in railroads.
And then, around 1910, divest from railroads and invest in cars.
Thomas Edison set up his Menlo Park lab in 1876 - you could just lend him your money and probably come out pretty well; later you’ll be in the position to give some start-up capital to young Henry Ford (though he had a couple false starts you’d have to follow him through). Alternately (or additionally), you could invest in Standard Oil, which was founded in 1870. When the 1920s hit and they trade for Babe Ruth, you can bet on the Yankees every year to win the World Series. You’ve probably also heard of Jack Dempsey and Joe Louis - wouldn’t hurt to bet on them to win every fight, either. (Dempsey was champ in the 20s, Louis in the 30s).
I’m curious - could you short anything in 1929?
That would seem to be a way to go. Short everything right before the crash. Take the money and invest it in gold miners (Homestead? H-something). Mid 30’s or early 40’s, cash out and buy military stocks.
Investing in the arms trade seems like a no-brainer, especially right before WW1.
There are all sorts of things I would do. Bet heavily on the outcomes of presidential elections. Buy stock in the Hollerith company just before Watson takes it over. Invest in Ford at the point the Model “T” is introduced. But stocks all through the 20s, as highly leveraged as possible and then sell it at the end of August 1929. Buy shares in any company that is still around today. Bet heavily for Cincinnati to win the 1920 World Series. The possibilities are endless.
How about rich AND famous.
Go back to 1865.
Mix nitroglycerin with an absorbent inert substance like diatomaceous earth.
Call it “dynamite” beating Alfred Nobel by two years.
Profit!!!
Donate a lot of money to have a prize named after you.
Could you invest in Ford? I thought it was all owned by Ford family members in that timeframe.
From the wikipedia article, he had a partner in setting up Ford Motor Company; if you’d been one of the guys enouraging him from back in his days with Edison, you could probably have been another partner.
Actually, Edison had an incredible gift for developing things that he thought would make money and them having no commercial value. For example, he formed a company to make houses out of cement. Not just the walls, everything, including beds and sinks were made from poured concrete. (Even a piano.) Still, the inventions he did well at he did really well at. So if you loan him money, try to steer him toward the phonograph (which he didn’t think would ever do well) and lightbulb and away from things like concrete foutons.
Probably - get out of the stock market in 1929 - before October. (Would be a good idea to be out in several times before then 1882, 1884, 1893, 1896, 1901 and 1907 - but that’s more than general knowledge).
Invest in companies you have heard of today. AT&T, IBM, Coca-cola would all be pretty good bets (you’d still want to sell in early 1929 and reinvest around 1932 or so).
The hard part would be the late 1800s - most of us just don’t know our economic history back that far - you could make some good investments (railroads or real estate) but some of those might take a long time to pan out. But once you hit the 20th century, I think most people with a general knowledge would get rich.
Wrong. That’s the period where you buy everything cheap.
No, you would want to invest right after the crash, when prices were the cheapest, not after they rebounded.
But the second that you pop into the timeline, you’re going to have a butterfly effect on the world. Maybe your presence causes Thomas Edison to fall in a ditch and die before he invents anything. Maybe Babe Ruth decides to go be a farmer instead of a baseball player. Maybe (insert name of famous person here) is never even born. So you’ll have to rely on general trends.
If you bet heavil on Cincy to win the '20 World Series, you’re going to be broke. Cincy took the 1919 Series from the Black Sox. However if you found some poor sucker, you could probably get huge odds that an unaasisted triple play would be pulled off in the '20 Series. (Bill Wamb-something or another) of the Cleveland Indians pulled one off that year.
Vick’s Vaporub will be a good thing to invest in right before WWI and the deadly flu pandemic.
You didn’t take your sports almanac back in time with you?
Absolutely - see the life of Jesse Livermore who made a fortune on the 1929 crash. Short selling was practiced on the Dutch bourse in the 17th century (and indeed banned for a time).