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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 Regency Centers Corp (NASD: REG)? Today, we examine the outcome of a five year investment into the stock back in 2018.

Start date: 12/19/2018
$10,000

12/19/2018
  $14,209

12/18/2023
End date: 12/18/2023
Start price/share: $57.75
End price/share: $66.74
Starting shares: 173.16
Ending shares: 212.89
Dividends reinvested/share: $12.28
Total return: 42.09%
Average annual return: 7.28%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $14,209.99

The above analysis shows the five year investment result worked out well, with an annualized rate of return of 7.28%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 5 years ago into $14,209.99 today (as of 12/18/2023). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 42.09% (something to think about: how might REG shares perform over the next 5 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

Notice that Regency Centers Corp paid investors a total of $12.28/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 2.68/share, we calculate that REG has a current yield of approximately 4.02%. Another interesting datapoint we can examine is ‘yield on cost’ — in other words, we can express the current annualized dividend of 2.68 against the original $57.75/share purchase price. This works out to a yield on cost of 6.96%.

Here’s one more great investment quote before you go:
“If I’ve learned one thing in this life it’s this: even if you lose, don’t lose the lesson.” — Daymond John