The O.G. - Rockefeller's Standard Oil Trust

Welcome back Chroniclers.

Let’s hop in the DeLorean jam the accelerator, hit 88mph and go back in time to examine the financial history of the OG. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil.

Before I begin, data on Standard Oil is very limited. Or at least the data I can find.

If you guys know of a better source please let me know in the comments.

Standard Oil traded on the NY Curb Exchange (precursor to AMEX) to avoid having to disclose financials to the public.

But I was able to find some limited financial data on page 88 of this study which examined the various trusts in the U.S. at the turn of the century.

Financial data is limited for the years 1882-1906 so I don’t get through the break up in 1911.

To add to it, I dug up the pricing data for the trust back to 1894.

Let’s begin

First let’s begin with a chart on Standard Oil’s share price (orange line) and divided by the S&P 500 (blue line) using Case Shiller data.

Standard Oil share price history, 1894-1913

A couple things to note.