The last five years have been a wild ride for the National Australia Bank Ltd (ASX: NAB) share price.
It's fluctuated between a high of $33.75 and a low of $13.195 in that time.
But if you sunk $1,000 into NAB shares exactly five years ago, would you be better off for it today? Keep reading to find out.
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Would you have been better off for buying NAB shares in 2017?
Let's assume you managed to snap up $1,000 worth of NAB shares at the bank's intraday low on 2 November 2017. That would have seen you walk away with 31 shares and nearly $14 change, having paid $31.81 apiece.
Right now, the NAB share price is trading at $32.76. That means those 31 shares would now command a value of $1,015.56.
That means a shareholder who got in on the stock exactly five years ago would be around $29 better off today.
However, if they panicked and sold during the worst of the COVID-19 crash, they would have lost more than half their investment – $577. On the other hand, if they sold at NAB's April peak, they'd have walked away with an extra $60.
But there's more to this story. NAB has paid out $7.23 per share in dividends over the last half-decade.
That means an investor with 31 shares would has received $224.12 worth of dividends in that time.
That would bring their total return on investment (ROI) to 25.7%. For comparison, the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) has lifted 17.2% in that time.
Additionally, all dividends paid by the big four bank over the last five years have been fully franked at 30%. That means they may have brought additional benefits to some shareholders come tax time.
And NAB also operates a dividend reinvestment plan (DRP), allowing investors to receive their dividends in the form of new shares, rather than cash. That lets shareholders easily compound their dividends, if that is their prerogative.
