I had always admired the “old” Conoco Phillips that included what is now ConocoPhillips (COP) and the new Phillips 66 (PSX). It owned immense oil, natural gas, and refining assets, and due to some historical mismanagement and the fact that it was an oil explorer without pockets as deep as rivals Chevron and what is now ExxonMobil, it always traded at a substantial discount to its peers.

For most of the 1990s and early 2000s, Conoco could be purchased with a 4% or 5% starting yield, which would get reinvested at low prices, and it created the type of situation where someone could make look back on several years of financial statements and see the compounding of dividends getting reinvested build wealth right before their eyes, even in as short of a time frame as 3-5 years.

In 2012, as we all know, Conoco decided to spin off Phillips 66, … Read the rest of this article!