“Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 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 ten year period?
Today, let’s look backwards in time to 2011, and take a look at what happened to investors who asked that very question about FleetCor Technologies Inc (NYSE: FLT), by taking a look at the investment outcome over a ten year holding period.
| Start date: | 10/25/2011 |
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| End date: | 10/22/2021 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $27.94 | ||||
| End price/share: | $277.32 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 357.91 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 357.91 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
| Total return: | 892.56% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 25.80% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $99,267.35 | ||||
The above analysis shows the ten year investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 25.80%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $99,267.35 today (as of 10/22/2021). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 892.56% (something to think about: how might FLT 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:
“It’s not how much money you make, but how much money you keep.” — Robert Kiyosaki
