“I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five 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 five year period?
Today, let’s look backwards in time to 2021, 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 five year holding period.
| Start date: | 03/04/2021 |
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| End date: | 03/03/2026 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $30.02 | ||||
| End price/share: | $93.87 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 333.11 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 333.11 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
| Total return: | 212.69% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 25.61% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $31,269.51 | ||||
As shown above, the five year investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 25.61%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 5 years ago into $31,269.51 today (as of 03/03/2026). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 212.69% (something to think about: how might ORLY shares perform over the next 5 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]
More investment wisdom to ponder:
“If a speculator is correct half of the time, he is hitting a good average. Even being right 3 or 4 times out of 10 should yield a person a fortune if he has the sense to cut his losses quickly on the ventures where he is wrong.” — Bernard Baruch
