The world's greatest businesses are unbelievably cheap right now... Just about as cheap as they were when the greatest bull market in the history of stocks started in 1982.

I'm talking about businesses like ExxonMobil, Philip Morris (Altria), and American Express, for example.

These are "world-dominating businesses" as my friend Dan Ferris calls them. (Dan recommends these three – and other businesses like them – in his newsletter, Extreme Value.)

While we can't know exactly when the stock market bottom will arrive, I can tell you these things are an incredible bargain. The last time these stocks were this cheap was at the beginning of the great bull market. Each of these stocks gave investors triple-digit returns within a couple years of the bottom.

For example, ExxonMobil is selling for eight times forward earnings. It was selling for seven times in 1983. American Express is an even better deal today... It trades at a cheaper forward P/E ratio today than in 1983. And Philip Morris has a higher dividend yield today (at 5.6%) than it had at the stock market bottom in 1982.

These numbers are shocking. No wonder Dan is so excited...

Let's take a closer look at Exxon to really show you what I mean. Exxon makes incredible amounts of money even when oil prices are low. In the latest issue of Extreme Value, Dan considers the very worst of times: "If you remember nothing else about ExxonMobil, remember this: It earned 12% on equity the year oil bottomed just above $10 a barrel."

He goes on to say...

Oil is still over $100 a barrel. ExxonMobil has moved down in sympathy with other oil stocks as the price of oil has fallen from $140 to about $115 today. This makes no sense... Even with oil below $100 a barrel, ExxonMobil would still make money, as the low-cost oil producer.

Last year, ExxonMobil generated $37 billion of free cash flow, on a total starting capital of $122 billion, a return on capital of about 30%. It paid $7.6 billion in dividends, and bought back nearly $32 billion of stock. It's on pace to generate more cash and distribute more to shareholders this year. In the first quarter of 2008, it generated $17 billion of free cash flow, paid $1.87 billion in dividends, and bought back nearly $10 billion worth of stock...

At current prices, ExxonMobil is cheap enough today that it ought to produce an excellent total return over the next few years.

And I should mention, Warren Buffett's incredible investment track record is significantly built on buying world-dominating businesses when they are cheap, and holding them for a long time.

As Dan has pointed out, the world dominators are cheap now. History shows if you buy them this cheap, you can make hundreds of percent returns.

Good investing,