Another Buy and Hold Winner: Lyndall Scott Russell

The buy and hold investment strategy is still alive and well.

Lyndall Scott Russell may not be quite as rich as Anne Schreiber through her investing, but her story again illustrates that if you buy boring companies and hold a long time, you’re likely to do quite well for yourself.

According to the McClatchy Tribune in Tuscon, Arizona, Lyndall Scott Russell in 1950 bought 15 shares of a stock for $315 in a company that insured cargo shipped to Alaska from the mainland. She didn’t know anything about the company (or investing really) but was following a friend’s advice.

She actually got the stock certificate from the company and put it in a shoebox. Her husband was in the military and as they moved from place to place the shoebox moved with them.

She never sold any shares and reinvested all dividends.

For 57 years.

She is now 100 years old. She won’t reveal exactly how many shares she has- but it numbers in the “thousands.”

She is “rich.”

The company? Safeco Insurance. It is currently trading with a dividend of 1.80% (not even that great.) It currently has a P/E of around 8. Stock trades around $66 a share. Price adjusted for splits- you could have bought the stock for $4 in 1986. So, it is more than a ten bagger in even the last 21 years.

Not bad for a boring insurance company.

Ms. Russell’s investing advice?

She insists that the stock market hinges largely on luck and likens it to another favorite pastime, horse races.

“I don’t check the market every day. It’s up. It’s down,” Russell said. “Buy it, hold it and forget it. For me, it’s been very successful.”