By making court appearances on behalf of clients in small towns across Missouri, I have observed that certain businesses have extremely strong footing in each and every small town. People get gas at the Casey’s General Store or the Exxon franchisee station, go to McDonald’s or Dairy Queen to eat, and grocery shop at Wal-Mart or Kroger.

People rarely think in these terms, but of McDonald’s 34,000 locations, almost 22,000 of them are in areas with populations less than 15,000.

I contend that these businesses, when bought at the right initial price of 15x earnings or cheaper, will lead to 10-12% annual returns over the long haul. I also contend that these investor returns will be well-earned, in that one will encounter many doom-and-gloom newspaper headlines as they go through the process of earning these superior returns.

There are two main grounds for why these rural staples of American capitalism … Read the rest of this article!