“When we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favorite holding period is forever.”
— 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 Intuitive Surgical Inc (NASD: ISRG) 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: | 12/21/2000 |
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| End date: | 12/18/2020 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $2.02 | ||||
| End price/share: | $789.09 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 4,950.50 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 4,950.50 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
| Total return: | 38,963.86% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 34.76% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $3,907,778.77 | ||||
As shown above, the two-decade investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 34.76%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 20 years ago into $3,907,778.77 today (as of 12/18/2020). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 38,963.86% (something to think about: how might ISRG 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:
“The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.” — Benjamin Graham
