“Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.”
— Warren Buffett
The wisdom of Warren Buffett reflects a value-based philosophy about investing that says investors are buying shares in a business, and encourages strategic thinking about investment time horizon. Before placing a buy order for a stock, a great question we can ask is whether we would still be comfortable making the investment if we couldn’t sell it for many years?
A “buy-and-hold” approach may call for a time horizon that spans a long period of time — maybe even lasting for a ten year holding period. Suppose such a “buy-and-hold” investor had looked into buying shares of Illumina Inc (NASD: ILMN) back in 2010. Let’s take a look at how such an investment would have worked out for that buy-and-hold investor:
| Start date: | 01/07/2010 |
|
|||
| End date: | 01/06/2020 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $32.77 | ||||
| End price/share: | $325.53 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 305.16 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 305.16 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
| Total return: | 893.38% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 25.80% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $99,329.79 | ||||
As shown above, the ten year investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 25.80%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $99,329.79 today (as of 01/06/2020). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 893.38% (something to think about: how might ILMN 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:
“Markets are constantly in a state of uncertainty and flux and money is made by discounting the obvious and betting on the unexpected.” — George Soros
