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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 Intuitive Surgical Inc (NASD: ISRG) back in 2009, bought the stock, ignored the market’s ups and downs, and simply held through to today.

Start date: 09/08/2009
$10,000

09/08/2009
$66,137

09/05/2019
End date: 09/05/2019
Start price/share: $76.81
End price/share: $508.17
Starting shares: 130.19
Ending shares: 130.19
Dividends reinvested/share: $0.00
Total return: 561.59%
Average annual return: 20.80%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $66,137.00

As we can see, the ten year investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 20.80%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $66,137.00 today (as of 09/05/2019). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 561.59% (something to think about: how might ISRG shares perform over the next 10 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

One more piece of investment wisdom to leave you with:
“The right time for a company to finance its growth is not when it needs capital, but rather when the market is most receptive to providing capital.” — Michael Milken