Photo credit: commons.wikimedia.org

“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 2015, investors considering an investment into shares of Fiserv Inc (NASD: FISV) 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: 12/04/2015
$10,000

12/04/2015
$24,309

12/03/2020
End date: 12/03/2020
Start price/share: $47.73
End price/share: $116.05
Starting shares: 209.51
Ending shares: 209.51
Dividends reinvested/share: $0.00
Total return: 143.14%
Average annual return: 19.43%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $24,309.63

As we can see, the five year investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 19.43%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 5 years ago into $24,309.63 today (as of 12/03/2020). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 143.14% (something to think about: how might FISV shares perform over the next 5 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

More investment wisdom to ponder:
“It’s not how much money you make, but how much money you keep.” — Robert Kiyosaki