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“Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”

— 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 two-decade holding period. Suppose such a “buy-and-hold” investor had looked into buying shares of Monster Beverage Corp (NASD: MNST) back in 2000. Let’s take a look at how such an investment would have worked out for that buy-and-hold investor:

Start date: 09/21/2000
$10,000

09/21/2000
$822,369

09/18/2020
End date: 09/18/2020
Start price/share: $0.96
End price/share: $78.99
Starting shares: 10,416.67
Ending shares: 10,416.67
Dividends reinvested/share: $0.00
Total return: 8,128.12%
Average annual return: 24.66%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $822,369.48

As we can see, the two-decade investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 24.66%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 20 years ago into $822,369.48 today (as of 09/18/2020). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 8,128.12% (something to think about: how might MNST shares perform over the next 20 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

Another great investment quote to think about:
“Cash is a fact, profit is an opinion.” — Alfred Rappaport