“Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 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 decade-long period?
Today, let’s look backwards in time to 2016, 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 decade-long holding period.
| Start date: | 01/28/2016 |
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| End date: | 01/27/2026 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $17.09 | ||||
| End price/share: | $100.62 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 585.14 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 585.14 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
| Total return: | 488.77% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 19.39% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $58,898.10 | ||||
As shown above, the decade-long investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 19.39%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $58,898.10 today (as of 01/27/2026). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 488.77% (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 piece of investment wisdom to leave you with:
“Value investing means really asking what are the best values, and not assuming that because something looks expensive that it is, or assuming that because a stock is down in price and trades at low multiples that it is a bargain.” — Bill Miller
