Photo credit: commons.wikimedia.org

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

— Warren Buffett

The Warren Buffett investment philosophy calls for a long-term investment horizon, where a decade-long holding period, or even longer, would fit right into the strategy. How would such a strategy have worked out for an investment into Varian Medical Systems Inc (NYSE: VAR)? Today, we examine the outcome of a decade-long investment into the stock back in 2009.

Start date: 10/30/2009
$10,000

10/30/2009
$33,777

10/29/2019
End date: 10/29/2019
Start price/share: $35.94
End price/share: $121.44
Starting shares: 278.24
Ending shares: 278.24
Dividends reinvested/share: $0.00
Total return: 237.90%
Average annual return: 12.94%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $33,777.12

As shown above, the decade-long investment result worked out quite well, with an annualized rate of return of 12.94%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $33,777.12 today (as of 10/29/2019). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 237.90% (something to think about: how might VAR shares perform over the next 10 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

More investment wisdom to ponder:
“He who earns and does not invest will have to work for the rest of his life.” — Debasish Mridha