Weekly "Focus" and a Toothpaste Tube

Many years ago, a close friend in New York City came up with an idea for a toothpaste tube that would eject the same amount of toothpaste each time. At the time he was an unemployed bond trader so he asked me to help him get a patent on this invention, which was awarded in 1994 for his “Screwtop controlled viscous materials dispenser”.

 

I thought about this episode in my life as I was in the drugstore downstairs in our office tower buying some new toothpaste. Definitely a product sector with just a few players – Crest, Colgate and Sensodyne. These products are manufactured by leading consumer packaging companies and the global toothpaste market is estimated at US$19.4 billion and is expected to grow by 5.4% per year through 2032 (ii). That’s a lot of toothpaste and too bad my friend never commercialized his invention as he went back to work on Wall Street - guessing the patent is sitting in his desk gathering dust.

 

	Toothpaste	Return in 2025	Dividend Yield
Colgate-Palmolive (CL)	Colgate	-2.0%	2.4%
Haleon (HLN)	Sensodyne	2.2%	1.8%
Proctor & Gamble (PG)	Crest	-6.4%	2.7%

Source: FactSet, Values as of July 17, 2025

 

This week’s "Focus" from our economics team is attached.

 

Have a great weekend,

 

Brad

Senior Portfolio Manager and Senior Investment Advisor