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“Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.”

— Warren Buffett

The Warren Buffett investment philosophy calls for a long-term investment horizon, where a ten year holding period, or even longer, would fit right into the strategy. How would such a strategy have worked out for an investment into O’Reilly Automotive, Inc. (NASD: ORLY)? Today, we examine the outcome of a ten year investment into the stock back in 2010.

Start date: 09/10/2010
$10,000

09/10/2010
$95,053

09/09/2020
End date: 09/09/2020
Start price/share: $50.12
End price/share: $476.28
Starting shares: 199.52
Ending shares: 199.52
Dividends reinvested/share: $0.00
Total return: 850.28%
Average annual return: 25.24%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $95,053.07

As we can see, the ten year investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 25.24%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $95,053.07 today (as of 09/09/2020). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 850.28% (something to think about: how might ORLY shares perform over the next 10 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

One more piece of investment wisdom to leave you with:
“Go for a business that any idiot can run – because sooner or later, any idiot probably is going to run it.” — Peter Lynch