“Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.”
— Warren Buffett
Such a great quote from Warren Buffett, highlighting the importance of investment time horizon when considering making an investment. In the short run, who knows what the stock market will do? A week or two after buying any given stock, could the entire stock market fall out of bed? Quite possibly! Should that happen, how would you react? It is an excellent question to think about before hitting the buy button.
For investors who take a multi-year time horizon, the important thing is not what happens in the next week or two, but what the result will be over the long haul. Today, we look at the result investors of the year 2009 experienced, who considered an investment in shares of Mettler-Toledo International, Inc. (NYSE: MTD) and decided upon a decade-long investment time horizon.
| Start date: | 11/27/2009 |
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| End date: | 11/26/2019 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $98.94 | ||||
| End price/share: | $723.90 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 101.07 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 101.07 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
| Total return: | 631.66% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 22.01% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $73,146.07 | ||||
As shown above, the decade-long investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 22.01%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $73,146.07 today (as of 11/26/2019). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 631.66% (something to think about: how might MTD shares perform over the next 10 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]
Another great investment quote to think about:
“In the long run, it’s not just how much money you make that will determine your future prosperity. It’s how much of that money you put to work by saving it and investing it.” — Peter Lynch
