Is total rate of return for a stock posted on financial web sites?

Question

I am a beginner trying to teach myself investing. I have read that it is important to look at the total rate of return for the stock when evaluating it (1, 3, 5 years). I understand the logic behind this but can't find this information readily available on common financial websites (Yahoo finance, Morningstar).

Am I looking in the wrong place or is this info not readily available and I therefore have to do math by myself for the stock I am researching?

Answer 1

It may exist but I do not know of any web sites that provide the one, five and ten year return for any stock of your choosing.

You can create a spreadsheet that does this but you'd have to capture historical data as well as the dividend dates and amounts and that would be quite onerous.

In lieu of the above, I think that the best approach would be a DRIP calculator. Enter the stock symbol as well as the beginning and end dates and it will provide the following stats for a $10k investment:

• Start date:
• End date:
• Start price/share:
• End price/share:
• Starting shares:
• Ending shares:
• Dividends reinvested/share:
• Total return:
• Average Annual Total Return:
• Starting investment:
• Ending investment:
• Years:

If the stock pays a dividend, it will provide two such sets of stats:

• Growth of $10,000.00 With Dividends Reinvested
• Growth of $10,000.00 Without Dividends Reinvested

Answer 2

Just MHO (which should be a comment, but is too long, so I made it a Community Wiki) but a beginner should not invest in individual stocks.

Mutual funds and ETFs (essentially mutual funds that act like stocks)

1. give you greater diversity, and
2. they display the 10 year growth, which includes dividends, and takes into account pesky things like stock splits.

You can then then break down that growth into 1, 3 and 5 year segments. (Some math is required, but it's a single simple formula, and -- once it's in your spreadsheet you never have to type it in again.)