Zacks Value Trader Highlights: The Progressive, Ryder System, East West Bancorp, Intel and Hewlett Packard

Zacks Value Trader Highlights: The Progressive, Ryder System, East West Bancorp, Intel and Hewlett Packard

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Chicago, IL – February 16, 2024 – Zacks Value Trader is a podcast hosted weekly by Zacks Stock Strategist Tracey Ryniec. Every week, Tracey will be joined by guests to discuss the hottest investing topics in stocks, bonds and ETFs and how it impacts your life. To listen to the podcast, click here: https://www.zacks.com/stock/news/2227135/5-years-later-lessons-from-buy-and-hold-investing)

5 Years Later: Lessons from Buy and Hold Investing

Welcome to Episode #358 of the Value Investor Podcast.

  • (1:00) - How Successful Would You Be If You Bought These Stocks In 2018?

  • (10:35) - 5 Year Performance of 5 Strong Value Stocks

  • (29:00) - Episode Roundup: PGR, R, EWBC, INTC, HPE

  • Podcast@Zacks.com

Every week, Tracey Ryniec, the editor of Zacks Value Investor portfolio, shares some of her top value investing tips and stock picks.

This week she was looking at the older episodes of the Value Investor podcast on Zacks podcast YouTube channel and stumbled across the July 18, 2018 episode titled, "5 Value Stocks to Buy and Hold for 5 Years."

You can listen to it on YouTube here.

5 years later, what happened to the trades talked about in that episode?

Did the buy and hold strategy outperform the S&P 500 over that same time period?

Screening for a Buy and Hold Strategy

Tracey screened for value stocks with growth and dividends. Why dividends? Because they can indicate good free cash flow and a commitment to shareholders by management. If you're going to hold a stock for 5 years, you want to make sure it has a solid balance sheet.

For value, the screen used a P/E under 15. For dividends, the company had to have a yield of at least 1%.

Tracey pulled out 5 companies she thought investors could realistically hold for a long period. There were no small caps.

5 Years Later: Were These Successful Investments?

1. The Progressive Corp. PGR

Progressive is a large property and casualty insurer which was founded in 1937. It's no longer a value stock, with a forward P/E of 21. Progressive still pays a dividend, but it's now only yielding 0.5%.

Shares of Progressive have been hitting new all-time highs in 2024.

If you had bought Progressive on July 18, 2018, would you be beating the returns of the S&P 500 over the same period?

2. Ryder System, Inc. R

Ryder System is a freight and logistics company. In 2018, Ryder was cheap with a forward P/E of 13. It remains cheap in 2024 even though shares have rallied off the pandemic lows. Ryder trades with a forward P/E of just 10.3 in 2024.

Ryder also continues to pay an attractive dividend. It yielded 2.8% in 2018 and is still paying a yield of 2.4% in 2024.