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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 PepsiCo Inc (NASD: PEP)? Today, we examine the outcome of a five year investment into the stock back in 2018.

Start date: 04/23/2018
$10,000

04/23/2018
  $20,887

04/20/2023
End date: 04/20/2023
Start price/share: $102.58
End price/share: $185.33
Starting shares: 97.48
Ending shares: 112.70
Dividends reinvested/share: $20.52
Total return: 108.87%
Average annual return: 15.89%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $20,887.14

As shown above, the five year investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 15.89%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 5 years ago into $20,887.14 today (as of 04/20/2023). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 108.87% (something to think about: how might PEP shares perform over the next 5 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

Notice that PepsiCo Inc paid investors a total of $20.52/share in dividends over the 5 holding period, marking a second component of the total return beyond share price change alone. Much like watering a tree, reinvesting dividends can help an investment to grow over time — for the above calculations we assume dividend reinvestment (and for this exercise the closing price on ex-date is used for the reinvestment of a given dividend).

Based upon the most recent annualized dividend rate of 4.6/share, we calculate that PEP has a current yield of approximately 2.48%. Another interesting datapoint we can examine is ‘yield on cost’ — in other words, we can express the current annualized dividend of 4.6 against the original $102.58/share purchase price. This works out to a yield on cost of 2.42%.

Another great investment quote to think about:
“While some might mistakenly consider value investing a mechanical tool for identifying bargains, it is actually a comprehensive investment philosophy that emphasizes the need to perform in-depth fundamental analysis, pursue long-term investment results, limit risk, and resist crowd psychology.” — Seth Klarman