CDAB
COEUR D ALENE BANCORP
stock OTC

"Near"-term stock performance depends partly on near-term returns on investment (e.g. through productivity improvements).
Say you have a set of candidate improvements that cost D years of development time, but increase productivity by P%.
- A. Cost 1 year. 1%.
- B. Cost 2 years. 2.01%.
- C. Cost 5 years. 12%.
- D. Cost 7 years. 10%.
- E. Cost 26 years. 0.1%.
- F. Cost 158 years. 1e30%.
Depending on your "time horizon", you may choose to work on improvements in different orders:
- 2 year horizon. Optimal sequence: A.
- 4 year horizon. Optimal sequence: AB or BA.
- 6 year horizon. Optimal sequence: C
- 20 year horizon. Optimal sequence: CDAB or CDBA.
- 159 year horizon. Optimal sequence: F.
- 200 year horizon. Optimal sequence: F????E.
So what about us?
It is possible that we have put off improvement F for some time while we were exhausting all the "lower-hanging" fruit. Perhaps improvement F gives utterly immense returns, and the reason we never did it was because the human economy could not sustain itself while working on F. Also, sometimes the development time for certain improvements are path-dependent, e.g. perhaps development on E accelerates development on F, and so it is worth it to prioritize E over F even for a 200 year time horizon. Thus, progress may slow for a really long time, but then jump up right after.
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Related thought experiment:
Say that the market knows with absolute certainty when an investment will generate real value. For instance, say Future Industries will generate exactly $0 in earnings for the next 158 years, and then on the 159th year, it immediately earns $1e28 and then self-destructs. That is a CAGR of 50% with exactly "zero" risk, which far exceeds the typical CAGR of 10% with "some" risk.
If your investment window is below 159 years, then you will never attain those earnings yourself. However, others may be able to experience that. You can of course sell your share at an equal or higher price in the future. What is the optimal price of Future Industries at any given time?

"Near"-term stock performance depends partly on near-term returns on investment (e.g. through productivity improvements).
Say you have a set of candidate improvements that cost D years of development time, but increase productivity by P%.
- A. Cost 1 year. 1%.
- B. Cost 2 years. 2.01%.
- C. Cost 5 years. 12%.
- D. Cost 7 years. 10%.
- E. Cost 26 years. 0.1%.
- F. Cost 158 years. 1e30%.
Depending on your "time horizon", you may choose to work on improvements in different orders:
- 2 year horizon. Optimal sequence: A.
- 4 year horizon. Optimal sequence: AB or BA.
- 6 year horizon. Optimal sequence: C
- 20 year horizon. Optimal sequence: CDAB or CDBA.
- 159 year horizon. Optimal sequence: F.
- 200 year horizon. Optimal sequence: F????E.
So what about us?
It is possible that we have put off improvement F for some time while we were exhausting all the "lower-hanging" fruit. Perhaps improvement F gives utterly immense returns, and the reason we never did it was because the human economy could not sustain itself while working on F. Also, sometimes the development time for certain improvements are path-dependent, e.g. perhaps development on E accelerates development on F, and so it is worth it to prioritize E over F even for a 200 year time horizon. Thus, progress may slow for a really long time, but then jump up right after.
---
Related thought experiment:
Say that the market knows with absolute certainty when an investment will generate real value. For instance, say Future Industries will generate exactly $0 in earnings for the next 158 years, and then on the 159th year, it immediately earns $1e28 and then self-destructs. That is a CAGR of 50% with exactly "zero" risk, which far exceeds the typical CAGR of 10% with "some" risk.
If your investment window is below 159 years, then you will never attain those earnings yourself. However, others may be able to experience that. You can of course sell your share at an equal or higher price in the future. What is the optimal price of Future Industries at any given time?