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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 Mylan NV (NASD: MYL)? Today, we examine the outcome of a five year investment into the stock back in 2014.

Start date: 11/21/2014
$10,000

11/21/2014
$3,090

11/20/2019
End date: 11/20/2019
Start price/share: $55.79
End price/share: $17.24
Starting shares: 179.24
Ending shares: 179.24
Dividends reinvested/share: $0.00
Total return: -69.10%
Average annual return: -20.93%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $3,090.71

As we can see, the five year investment result worked out poorly, with an annualized rate of return of -20.93%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 5 years ago into $3,090.71 today (as of 11/20/2019). On a total return basis, that’s a result of -69.10% (something to think about: how might MYL 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:
“Waiting helps you as an investor and a lot of people just can’t stand to wait. If you didn’t get the deferred-gratification gene, you’ve got to work very hard to overcome that.” — Charlie Munger