“I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.”
— Warren Buffett
The wisdom of Warren Buffett reflects a value-based philosophy about investing that says investors are buying shares in a business, and encourages strategic thinking about investment time horizon. Before placing a buy order for a stock, a great question we can ask is whether we would still be comfortable making the investment if we couldn’t sell it for many years?
A “buy-and-hold” approach may call for a time horizon that spans a long period of time — maybe even lasting for a five year holding period. Suppose such a “buy-and-hold” investor had looked into buying shares of WellCare Health Plans Inc (NYSE: WCG) back in 2015. Let’s take a look at how such an investment would have worked out for that buy-and-hold investor:
| Start date: | 01/09/2015 |
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| End date: | 01/08/2020 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $76.43 | ||||
| End price/share: | $335.72 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 130.84 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 130.84 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
| Total return: | 339.25% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 34.44% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $43,918.00 | ||||
As we can see, the five year investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 34.44%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 5 years ago into $43,918.00 today (as of 01/08/2020). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 339.25% (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.]
More investment wisdom to ponder:
“Everyone has the brainpower to make money in stocks. Not everyone has the stomach. If you are susceptible to selling everything in a panic, you ought to avoid stocks and mutual funds altogether.” — Peter Lynch
