If You'd Invested $100 in CVS Health (CVS) Stock 5 Years Ago, Here's How Much You'd Have Today (Spoiler: You Wouldn't Have Lost Money)
Key Points
CVS Health is facing some headwinds, which have adversely affected its stock price.
Rising costs are putting pressure on its profits.
- 10 stocks we like better than CVS Health ›
We all know how costly healthcare is, and that it's big business, making plenty of people wealthy. You might be wondering, then, how you'd have done if you'd invested in some healthcare companies in years past. Here's how you would have done if you'd plunked $100 in shares of CVS Health (NYSE: CVS) five years ago: Your investment would now be worth about $108.11.
That might not seem too bad, as you didn't lose money, after all. But the past five years have been very good for the U.S. stock market in general. If you'd parked that $100 in an S&P 500 index fund instead, your investment would now be worth more like $171.46. Instead of having your money grow at an average annual rate of 1.6% in CVS Health, it would have averaged 11% in the S&P 500.
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Had you reinvested your dividends, your money would have grown faster on average -- by 1.7% annually in CVS Health and 11.4% in the S&P 500 index fund.
Image source: Getty Images.
You might be wondering whether it's a good idea to invest in CVS Health now. It's a fair question, as the company is growing. In its fourth quarter, it posted year-over-year revenue growth of 8.2% and full-year growth of 7.8%. But while its shares are not wildly overvalued, the company faces some challenges.
For example, via its Aetna business, it's heavily involved in Medicare Advantage plans, and it looks as if those plans won't see much of a bump in rates this year. Meanwhile, rising costs are eating into CVS's already-slim profit margins. If you do invest, though, after digging more deeply into CVS Health, you can enjoy a dividend that recently yielded a solid 3.8%.
But know that there are faster-growing companies and faster-growing funds to consider for your portfolio, too. Plus, there are dividend-paying stocks offering more income.
Should you buy stock in CVS Health right now?
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Selena Maranjian has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends CVS Health. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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