“Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”
— Warren Buffett
The wisdom of Warren Buffett reflects a value-based philosophy about investing that says investors are buying shares in a business, and encourages strategic thinking about investment time horizon. Before placing a buy order for a stock, a great question we can ask is whether we would still be comfortable making the investment if we couldn’t sell it for many years?
A “buy-and-hold” approach may call for a time horizon that spans a long period of time — maybe even lasting for a two-decade holding period. Suppose such a “buy-and-hold” investor had looked into buying shares of SBA Communications Corp (NASD: SBAC) back in 1999. Let’s take a look at how such an investment would have worked out for that buy-and-hold investor:
| Start date: | 06/17/1999 |
|
|||
| End date: | 05/13/2019 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $8.69 | ||||
| End price/share: | $209.27 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 1,151.08 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 1,151.08 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
| Total return: | 2,308.86% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 17.32% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $240,845.91 | ||||
As shown above, the two-decade investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 17.32%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 20 years ago into $240,845.91 today (as of 05/13/2019). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 2,308.86% (something to think about: how might SBAC shares perform over the next 20 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]
One more piece of investment wisdom to leave you with:
“Be fearful when others are greedy; be greedy when others are fearful.” — Warren Buffett
