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“When we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favorite holding period is forever.”

— Warren Buffett

One of the most important things investors can learn from Warren Buffett, is about how they approach their time horizon for an investment into a stock under consideration. Because immediately after buying shares of a given stock, investors will then be able to check on the day-to-day (and even minute-by-minute) market value. Some days the stock market will be up, other days down. These daily fluctuations can often distract from the long-term view. Today, we look at the result of a two-decade holding period for an investor who was considering Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASD: AMD) back in 2001, bought the stock, ignored the market’s ups and downs, and simply held through to today.

Start date: 04/16/2001
$10,000

04/16/2001
$34,139

04/13/2021
End date: 04/13/2021
Start price/share: $23.50
End price/share: $80.19
Starting shares: 425.53
Ending shares: 425.53
Dividends reinvested/share: $0.00
Total return: 241.23%
Average annual return: 6.33%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $34,139.91

As shown above, the two-decade investment result worked out well, with an annualized rate of return of 6.33%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 20 years ago into $34,139.91 today (as of 04/13/2021). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 241.23% (something to think about: how might AMD shares perform over the next 20 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

More investment wisdom to ponder:
“Behind every stock is a company. Find out what it’s doing.” — Peter Lynch