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“I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.”

— Warren Buffett

This inspiring quote from Warren Buffett teaches us the importance of considering our investment time horizon when approaching any given investment: Could we envision ourselves holding the stock we are considering for many years? Even a five year holding period potentially?

For “buy-and-hold” investors taking a long-term view, what’s important isn’t the short-term stock market fluctuations that will inevitably occur, but what happens over the long haul. Looking back 5 years to 2014, investors considering an investment into shares of CBRE Group Inc (NYSE: CBRE) may have been pondering this very question and thinking about their potential investment result over a full five year time horizon. Here’s how that would have worked out.

Start date: 12/22/2014
$10,000

12/22/2014
$17,069

12/19/2019
End date: 12/19/2019
Start price/share: $35.04
End price/share: $59.82
Starting shares: 285.39
Ending shares: 285.39
Dividends reinvested/share: $0.00
Total return: 70.72%
Average annual return: 11.30%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $17,069.51

As we can see, the five year investment result worked out quite well, with an annualized rate of return of 11.30%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 5 years ago into $17,069.51 today (as of 12/19/2019). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 70.72% (something to think about: how might CBRE shares perform over the next 5 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

Here’s one more great investment quote before you go:
“Confronted with a challenge to distill the secret of sound investment into three words, we venture the motto, Margin of Safety.” — Benjamin Graham