In 1841, Lewis Tappan didn’t just start a company — he lit the spark that would ignite modern American capitalism.
At the time, lending money was a gamble.
No credit scores. No databases. No way to verify whether a borrower could actually pay you back.
It was the Wild West of finance — just blind trust and crossed fingers. Fortunes were made and lost on gut instinct alone.
Tappan saw the madness and built a solution.
He launched the Mercantile Agency — the first business credit reporting system in the U.S.
He created a network of trusted agents who traveled the country gathering hard data on merchants, verifying their financial health, and reporting it back.
For the first time, lenders could base decisions on facts, not guesswork.
Source: Baker Library Historical Collections. Harvard Business School.
Engraving of the Mercantile Agency’s New York Office c. 1870
That system eventually became Dun & Bradstreet — a company that now tracks credit and business data on more than 600 million firms around the globe.
Think about that: No D&B, no credit system. No Visa. No Mastercard. No small business loans.
Just chaos.
One man, one idea, and the discipline to execute it — that’s all it took to change everything.
How We Spot Winners Before the Market Does
And that’s exactly the kind of thinking we look for with our Alpha-4 Approach.
We invest in companies with strong tailwinds … led by visionary founders and CEOs who see what others don’t … backed by solid financials … and, most importantly, trading at great prices.
Take The Progressive Corporation (PGR), for example.
While most investors were distracted by the latest hype, we focused on the fundamentals.
Progressive saw the road ahead — and delivered 240% returns.
Progressive had all four Alpha traits. It was riding a long-term tailwind — with more Americans on the road, demand for auto insurance kept growing.
Leading the way was CEO Tricia Griffith, who started as a claims adjuster and leaned into data, tech and customer experience to drive results.
The business was financially disciplined, with smart underwriting, rising profits and a rock-solid balance sheet.
And we bought it when it was trading at a great price — before the rest of the market caught on.
The result? Progressive is up more than 240% since we added it to our portfolio in April 2021.
That’s the power of sticking to a time-tested strategy. Just like Tappan did.
You just have to know where to look.
Regards,
Charles Mizrahi
Founder, Alpha Investor
