“Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”
— 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 two-decade period?
Today, let’s look backwards in time to 2006, and take a look at what happened to investors who asked that very question about O’Reilly Automotive, Inc. (NASD: ORLY), by taking a look at the investment outcome over a two-decade holding period.
| Start date: | 01/17/2006 |
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| End date: | 01/13/2026 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $2.11 | ||||
| End price/share: | $94.63 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 4,739.34 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 4,739.34 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
| Total return: | 4,384.83% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 20.94% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $448,358.60 | ||||
As we can see, the two-decade investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 20.94%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 20 years ago into $448,358.60 today (as of 01/13/2026). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 4,384.83% (something to think about: how might ORLY shares perform over the next 20 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]
One more investment quote to leave you with:
“Based on my own personal experience, both as an investor in recent years and an expert witness in years past, rarely do more than three or four variables really count. Everything else is noise.” — Martin Whitman
