What was your longest held stock and what was the return?

[Jurgis]

Let me build a bit on what some have said here. Basically if you hold a well performing stock (muti bagger, etc) in a cash account you're stuck with it. When you take into account the tax hit on sale most times it's more profitable to continue holding it rather than sell it even if it will under perform. People should think more about after-tax returns rather than pre-tax which is the norm. It will help a lot with not selling compounders and they may be rather pleased with the results.

 

Right.

 

I'm in US and most of my money is - for better or worse - in tax deferred/exempt accounts.

 

In taxable accounts outperforming tax-efficient index is mostly FOGETABOUTIT. Compounders may work. (Though a secret ScottHall'ish goal of this thread was that forever holds don't perform as well as people think they do  8) ).

 

Also for US-only: I donate appreciated taxable stock to Fidelity Charitable Trust, which I then disburse to charities. Good way to get rid of those pesky capital gains.

 

Thanks to all who contributed. Please continue.  8)

[woltac]

BRK.B purchased on January 15, 1997 for $22.58 split adjusted for a 643% gain. 

[randomep]

 

Bought MO in 2000, I have sold about 1/2 I guess. It is now: MO PM KHC and MDLZ with reinvested dividends I think it is around 1200% in 17 yrs for a 16% annual return.

[Spekulatius]

My longest held shares were Nestle, which I bought in 2003 and sadly had to sell in 2013, because I had to liquidate my foreign account in which the shares were held, because German brokerages would not do business with US persons any more, due to onerous anti- money laundering laws.

 

I rebought Nestle again recently when the stock fell somewhat. My current longest term holding is LAACZ, which I purchased early 2012. I found that buying shares that don't trade much easier to hold, because they are harder to sell. ;)

 

 

[boilermaker75]

Earlier I mentioned that my longest holding was INTC, which I held for 25 years.

 

Currently my longest holdings are BRKB and WFC, initial positions purchased in 2008 and BAC, initial purchases in 2009.

 

I hope to break my record of holding for 25 years with all three--BRKB, WFC, and BAC.

[rkbabang]

My longest and best investment by far is MIDD. I bought it in April of 2005 at around a split adjusted $2.50/share. I sold most of it around $85 or so, but I still own some today it is about $136. I should have never sold any of it.

[KinAlberta]

Brk - about a quarter century now. Return? - It's been ok - bought it thinking that if it did better than a GIC return I'd be happy. I've been happy.

 

Held some other positions, like FFH, Cdn banks, etc. for a long periods too. Finally parted with last of FFH just last year (so maybe close to 20 yrs on a few shares). Bailed on long term positions in banks (TD etc.) by the summer of 2008 and never went directly - foolish me. (Bought back via low performing more diversified products like ETFs, dividend funds and a closed end bank fund and now out of them all for several years now. )

[drzola]

Inherited form grandparents Government of Canada 1982 30 yr strip bonds something like 18-19.5 interest rate.

 

Sold out In 2003 and bought my house with all the cash.  :-*

 

cheers.

[drzola]

My Bad.  Longest held stocks our;

1. BRKB since 1998

2. MSFT since 1998

3. JNJ since 1998

4. BCE since 1999

5. LVLT since 1999

[benhacker]

Don't have exact numbers handy:

- held WFC since mid / late 2008.  Returns from first purchase probably ~7% annually, weighted average much better.

- held NICK since 2007.  Returns from first purchase about ~8% annually, weighted average much better.

- held (until Dec '16) FFH.T since 2006.  Returns from first purchase ~20% annually, a bit worse I think.

- held BRK.b since '05 (I haven't held continuously outside of an investment club, but pretty close).  Returns the same as others. ;-)

- held BAC since late '11.  Roughly 20%+ annually I think... weighted average is probably similar, maybe a bit better due to measuring now.

- held IBKR since '11 as well.  Roughly 15%+ annually... weighted average is probably better.

 

All from my best recollection.

 

[Guest longinvestor]

My Bad.  Longest held stocks our;

1. BRKB since 1998

2. MSFT since 1998

3. JNJ since 1998

4. BCE since 1999

5. LVLT since 1999

 

Ouch. Hope you bought a lot more in 2008 + timeframe.

[mrholty]

Longest Held - I bought one share of IBM on July 17, 1991 as I was 13 years old and I still hold it to this day mostly because its been a pain in the ass to sell.

 

My Dad was a local insurance broker who in the early 80s saw the value of computers and paid something like $30 or $50k to put a mainframe in his office to automate the billing and applications of payments/policies.  He was an independent agent and saw that this would save his office something like reduce the need of the 5/6 people who all they did was handle paperwork/filing to 2 or 3.  I was 4 years old and thought this thing was awesome.  This was a big deal and the large insurers like Hartford and Travellers were sending agents to his office to "see the future". Sadly my Dad did some real stupid/illegal stuff when the farming industry crashed in 1985/86 and he lost the business.  That little spark kept me interested in computers and we got our first computer in our house in 1987 when I was 9 and I remember how messed up it was to use the prompts.  I could but my parents could not.  In 1990 I saw my first version of Windows 3.0 where you could point and click and I was like "aha-this is the future.  My mom can use a computer!"  I asked my Dad how I could make money off of this - he said to buy stock and showed me the 2 pages of stock prices in the newspaper each day.  That winter my local university extension catalog came home and I saw a class for "investing in the stock market" and I convinced my mom to sign me up and I paid the $25 fee.  I went to the class on Saturday mornings for 6 weeks and was dejected.  It ended up being run by a local broker who didn't teach about how to value stocks or anything like that but was just saying that you never know and should hire somebody but its a way to make huge money.

 

I ended up going to my local library to learn more.  After spending time in the investments section and I went there all the time as it was on the way home from school and old man came up to me and asked what I was doing.  He explained all the things in the newspaper and showed me a value line book.  I was shocked.  He helped me over the next month and for that I am forever grateful.  By that time my parents were seperated and times were tough.  I worked that summer mowing a few lawns to make money and I wanted to buy stock in IBM and Microsoft as I knew that Microsoft made Windows and IBM made the computers that the schools and companies would be buying and using.  My father came home from Las Vegas that week and on that Wednesday we went to the local bank to buy stock with my $100 in my pocket.  I walked in with my Dad and the teller directed us to take a seat.  Eventually we met a guy and he asked what we wanted and my Dad made me tell him.  At that point he told me I was dumb and that I should put it in a mutual fund with a low upfront fee of 8% or something.  I held firm and eventually we filled out the paperwork for me to buy 1 share @ $100.  My Dad paid the $60 transaction fee and I walked out on cloud 9.  My Dad told me that the next time I wanted to buy stock I would have to pay the transaction fee as well. 

 

At the end of August I bought 10 shares of Microsoft.  I remember that just before I bought the IBM share that Microsoft had a 3 for 2 split at $30 and went from $30 to $20.  I thought it just went down and freaked out.  I was going to buy Microsoft first but IBM was safer.  I ended up selling the Microsoft shares a few years later to pay for a chunk of college tuition.  The 1 IBM share turned into 8 and we lost the certificate and I was a minor so it was in my Dad's name and I lost contact with him. Only in the last 6 months have I filled out the paperwork that the share certificate is lost and it should be in my name.  I'm going to sell it and collect all the unclaimed dividends at some point and put that money into my kids college fund. 

 

thanks for reading if you have gotten this far. 

My second longest investment was a disaster in Axion Power that I held for too long expecting it to turn ignoring all the signs and waiting and hanging on.

[drzola]

longinvestor; No worries as I'm still in the game here as a Long Investor!  ;D

 

Cheers.