“I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.”
— Warren Buffett
The above quote from Warren Buffett is timeless, and brings into focus the choice about time horizon that any investor should think about before buying a stock they are considering. Behind every stock is an actual business; what will that business look like over a five year period?
Today, let’s look backwards in time to 2014, and take a look at what happened to investors who asked that very question about AT&T Inc (NYSE: T), by taking a look at the investment outcome over a five year holding period.
| Start date: | 12/03/2014 |
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| End date: | 12/02/2019 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $34.00 | ||||
| End price/share: | $37.32 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 294.12 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 386.86 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $9.80 | ||||
| Total return: | 44.38% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 7.62% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $14,436.60 | ||||
The above analysis shows the five year investment result worked out well, with an annualized rate of return of 7.62%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 5 years ago into $14,436.60 today (as of 12/02/2019). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 44.38% (something to think about: how might T shares perform over the next 5 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]
Beyond share price change, another component of T’s total return these past 5 years has been the payment by AT&T Inc of $9.80/share in dividends to shareholders. Automatic reinvestment of dividends can be a wonderful way to compound returns, and for the above calculations we presume that dividends are reinvested into additional shares of stock. (For the purpose of these calcuations, the closing price on ex-date is used).
Based upon the most recent annualized dividend rate of 2.04/share, we calculate that T has a current yield of approximately 5.47%. Another interesting datapoint we can examine is ‘yield on cost’ — in other words, we can express the current annualized dividend of 2.04 against the original $34.00/share purchase price. This works out to a yield on cost of 16.09%.
Here’s one more great investment quote before you go:
“The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect. You need a temperament that neither derives great pleasure from being with the crowd or against the crowd.” — Warren Buffett
