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“I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.”

— Warren Buffett

The Warren Buffett investment philosophy calls for a long-term investment horizon, where a five year holding period, or even longer, would fit right into the strategy. How would such a strategy have worked out for an investment into FirstEnergy Corp (NYSE: FE)? Today, we examine the outcome of a five year investment into the stock back in 2014.

Start date: 04/24/2014
$10,000

04/24/2014
$14,754

04/23/2019
End date: 04/23/2019
Start price/share: $34.18
End price/share: $40.74
Starting shares: 292.57
Ending shares: 362.21
Dividends reinvested/share: $7.22
Total return: 47.56%
Average annual return: 8.09%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $14,754.60

The above analysis shows the five year investment result worked out well, with an annualized rate of return of 8.09%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 5 years ago into $14,754.60 today (as of 04/23/2019). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 47.56% (something to think about: how might FE shares perform over the next 5 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

Notice that FirstEnergy Corp paid investors a total of $7.22/share in dividends over the 5 holding period, marking a second component of the total return beyond share price change alone. Much like watering a tree, reinvesting dividends can help an investment to grow over time — for the above calculations we assume dividend reinvestment (and for this exercise the closing price on ex-date is used for the reinvestment of a given dividend).

Based upon the most recent annualized dividend rate of 1.52/share, we calculate that FE has a current yield of approximately 3.73%. Another interesting datapoint we can examine is ‘yield on cost’ — in other words, we can express the current annualized dividend of 1.52 against the original $34.18/share purchase price. This works out to a yield on cost of 10.91%.

Another great investment quote to think about:
“Calling someone who trades actively in the market an investor is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a romantic.” — Warren Buffett