“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 Ross Stores Inc (NASD: ROST)? Today, we examine the outcome of a five year investment into the stock back in 2019.
| Start date: | 06/04/2019 |
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| End date: | 06/03/2024 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $94.64 | ||||
| End price/share: | $141.22 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 105.66 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 110.92 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $5.14 | ||||
| Total return: | 56.64% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 9.39% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $15,667.33 | ||||
The above analysis shows the five year investment result worked out well, with an annualized rate of return of 9.39%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 5 years ago into $15,667.33 today (as of 06/03/2024). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 56.64% (something to think about: how might ROST shares perform over the next 5 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]
Notice that Ross Stores Inc paid investors a total of $5.14/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 1.47/share, we calculate that ROST has a current yield of approximately 1.04%. Another interesting datapoint we can examine is ‘yield on cost’ — in other words, we can express the current annualized dividend of 1.47 against the original $94.64/share purchase price. This works out to a yield on cost of 1.10%.
Another great investment quote to think about:
“The idea that a bell rings to signal when to get into or out of the stock market is simply not credible. After nearly fifty years in this business, I don’t know anybody who has done it successfully and consistently.” — Jack Bogle
