Has Buffett's Recent Buy of POOL Stock Been Good for Investors?

• Pool Corporation's shares person mislaid astir one-third of their worth implicit the past year.

• The stock's show is adjacent worse erstwhile measured against the S&P 500.

• Over 3 and 5 years, the stock's show is better, but the show against the marketplace is worse.

• 10 stocks we similar amended than Pool ›

Legendary capitalist Warren Buffett has gotten plentifulness of disapproval implicit the years. Much of it has stemmed from his decisions to clasp connected to slumping stocks successful his Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) (NYSE: BRK.B) portfolio if helium believes successful the semipermanent imaginable of their underlying businesses. This semipermanent buy-and-hold strategy has made him a multibillionaire and silenced astir of his critics.

However, adjacent Buffett admits that he's made immoderate mistakes implicit the years. Could Berkshire's caller bargain of excavation instrumentality wholesaler Pool Corp. (NASDAQ: POOL) beryllium a mistake? Here's however the banal has treated its investors who bought successful earlier Buffett, and however it mightiness dainty investors today.

Berkshire Hathaway archetypal announced that it had bought shares of Pool astir a twelvemonth ago. Over the past year, though, the banal has been a large underperformer, with shares sliding from astir $400 per stock a twelvemonth agone to the $300 per stock scope by April 2025, and to lone astir $245 a stock today. That's a driblet of astir 33%, meaning that investors who bought successful astir the aforesaid clip arsenic Berkshire person mislaid astir one-third of their investment.

That's bad, but things look adjacent worse erstwhile you origin successful that the S&P 500 has really risen by astir 14% implicit that time. This means that investing successful Pool has underperformed the broader marketplace by astir 47 percent points. Most analysts deliberation the slumping lodging marketplace is to blame, arsenic caller excavation installations hap erstwhile a location is built, and large repairs and renovations are apt to hap erstwhile a location is being prepared for sale.

But that's conscionable the past year. How has Pool banal done implicit the longer term?

Pool has really done adjacent worse implicit the mean term. Its three- and five-year performances are somewhat amended connected an implicit basis, with shares of the banal lone down astir 26% since November 2022 and 25% since November 2020. But erstwhile we origin successful the accidental costs, the results look truly bad.

Because the S&P 500 has grown by astir 75% implicit the past 3 years and astir 100% implicit the past 5 years, the accidental outgo of taking a involvement successful Pool has been monolithic -- astir 100 percent points implicit 3 years and 125 percent points implicit five. For investors who bought during the company's highest successful precocious 2021, arsenic lockdown-era excavation installations skyrocketed during the pandemic's height, the show is adjacent worse.