“I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.”
— Warren Buffett
This inspiring quote from Warren Buffett teaches us the importance of considering our investment time horizon when approaching any given investment: Could we envision ourselves holding the stock we are considering for many years? Even a five year holding period potentially?
For “buy-and-hold” investors taking a long-term view, what’s important isn’t the short-term stock market fluctuations that will inevitably occur, but what happens over the long haul. Looking back 5 years to 2014, investors considering an investment into shares of WellCare Health Plans Inc (NYSE: WCG) may have been pondering this very question and thinking about their potential investment result over a full five year time horizon. Here’s how that would have worked out.
| Start date: | 10/17/2014 |
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| End date: | 10/16/2019 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $60.45 | ||||
| End price/share: | $268.55 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 165.43 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 165.43 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
| Total return: | 344.25% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 34.75% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $44,426.68 | ||||
As we can see, the five year investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 34.75%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 5 years ago into $44,426.68 today (as of 10/16/2019). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 344.25% (something to think about: how might WCG shares perform over the next 5 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]
One more piece of investment wisdom to leave you with:
“As in roulette, same is true of the stock trader, who will find that the expense of trading weights the dice heavily against him.” — Benjamin Graham
