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 above quote from Warren Buffett is timeless, and brings into focus the choice about time horizon that any investor should think about before buying a stock they are considering. Behind every stock is an actual business; what will that business look like over a decade-long period?

Today, let’s look backwards in time to 2009, and take a look at what happened to investors who asked that very question about CBRE Group Inc (NYSE: CBRE), by taking a look at the investment outcome over a decade-long holding period.

Start date: 12/07/2009
$10,000

12/07/2009
$47,031

12/04/2019
End date: 12/04/2019
Start price/share: $12.13
End price/share: $57.03
Starting shares: 824.40
Ending shares: 824.40
Dividends reinvested/share: $0.00
Total return: 370.16%
Average annual return: 16.75%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $47,031.04

As shown above, the decade-long investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 16.75%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $47,031.04 today (as of 12/04/2019). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 370.16% (something to think about: how might CBRE shares perform over the next 10 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

Here’s one more great investment quote before you go:
“The policy of being too cautious is the greatest risk of all.” — Jawaharlal Nehru