“Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.”
— Warren Buffett
Investors can learn a lot from Warren Buffett, whose above quote teaches the importance of thinking about investment time horizon, and asking ourselves before buying any given stock: can we envision holding onto it for years — even a decade-long holding period possibly?
Suppose a “buy-and-hold” investor was considering an investment into Salesforce.com Inc (NYSE: CRM) back in 2010: back then, such an investor may have been pondering this very same question. Had they answered “yes” to a full decade-long investment time horizon and then actually held for these past 10 years, here’s how that investment would have turned out.
| Start date: | 06/11/2010 |
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| End date: | 06/10/2020 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $24.16 | ||||
| End price/share: | $182.10 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 413.91 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 413.91 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
| Total return: | 653.73% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 22.37% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $75,375.47 | ||||
As shown above, the decade-long investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 22.37%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $75,375.47 today (as of 06/10/2020). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 653.73% (something to think about: how might CRM 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:
“A market downturn doesn’t bother us. It is an opportunity to increase our ownership of great companies with great management at good prices.” — Warren Buffett
