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“Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.”

— Warren Buffett

One of the most important things investors can learn from Warren Buffett, is about how they approach their time horizon for an investment into a stock under consideration. Because immediately after buying shares of a given stock, investors will then be able to check on the day-to-day (and even minute-by-minute) market value. Some days the stock market will be up, other days down. These daily fluctuations can often distract from the long-term view. Today, we look at the result of a ten year holding period for an investor who was considering Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc (NYSE: CMG) back in 2009, bought the stock, ignored the market’s ups and downs, and simply held through to today.

Start date: 07/13/2009
$10,000

07/13/2009
$91,726

07/11/2019
End date: 07/11/2019
Start price/share: $80.70
End price/share: $740.06
Starting shares: 123.92
Ending shares: 123.92
Dividends reinvested/share: $0.00
Total return: 817.05%
Average annual return: 24.81%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $91,726.29

As we can see, the ten year investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 24.81%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $91,726.29 today (as of 07/11/2019). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 817.05% (something to think about: how might CMG shares perform over the next 10 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

More investment wisdom to ponder:
“When everyone is going right, look left.” — Sam Zell