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“Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.”

— Warren Buffett

The Warren Buffett investment philosophy calls for a long-term investment horizon, where a decade-long holding period, or even longer, would fit right into the strategy. How would such a strategy have worked out for an investment into O’Reilly Automotive, Inc. (NASD: ORLY)? Today, we examine the outcome of a decade-long investment into the stock back in 2010.

Start date: 02/12/2010
$10,000

02/12/2010
$97,917

02/11/2020
End date: 02/11/2020
Start price/share: $39.80
End price/share: $389.76
Starting shares: 251.26
Ending shares: 251.26
Dividends reinvested/share: $0.00
Total return: 879.30%
Average annual return: 25.62%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $97,917.27

As shown above, the decade-long investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 25.62%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $97,917.27 today (as of 02/11/2020). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 879.30% (something to think about: how might ORLY shares perform over the next 10 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

One more investment quote to leave you with:
“Searching for companies is like looking for grubs under rocks: if you turn over 10 rocks you’ll likely find one grub; if you turn over 20 rocks you’ll find two.” — Peter Lynch