It is easy to get caught up on short term price trends. Amazon, for instance, rose from $480 in February last year to $945 today. That is almost exactly a rise of 100% in 15 months time.

Amazon’s stock price is trading 0.23 percent lower today, after a strong rise of 2.5 percent yesterday, as it closed at all-time highs at $948.

Looking at the big picture, Amazon started to trade publicly in May of 1997 which is exactly 20 years ago. At that time, nobody could imagine how much value Amazon would create in this world. Amazon truly disrupted e-commerce, not only when launching but, more importantly, the company continued to disrupt.

The first chart makes a very important point. Investing in disruptive companies can be extremely profitable. Choosing the right company is obviously key.

Amazon started off selling books and CD’s on the internet. It was the start of a new large trend. Comparing Amazon with a traditional book selling company, on the chart Barnes & Noble, shows how different it is to invest in traditional vs disruptive companies.