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

— Warren Buffett

Such a great quote from Warren Buffett, highlighting the importance of investment time horizon when considering making an investment. In the short run, who knows what the stock market will do? A week or two after buying any given stock, could the entire stock market fall out of bed? Quite possibly! Should that happen, how would you react? It is an excellent question to think about before hitting the buy button.

For investors who take a multi-year time horizon, the important thing is not what happens in the next week or two, but what the result will be over the long haul. Today, we look at the result investors of the year 2001 experienced, who considered an investment in shares of Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASD: AMD) and decided upon a twenty year investment time horizon.

Start date: 05/29/2001
$10,000

05/29/2001
$26,644

05/27/2021
End date: 05/27/2021
Start price/share: $29.43
End price/share: $78.42
Starting shares: 339.79
Ending shares: 339.79
Dividends reinvested/share: $0.00
Total return: 166.46%
Average annual return: 5.02%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $26,644.96

As we can see, the twenty year investment result worked out well, with an annualized rate of return of 5.02%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 20 years ago into $26,644.96 today (as of 05/27/2021). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 166.46% (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.]

Another great investment quote to think about:
“Experience taught me a few things. One is to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper. The second is that you’re generally better off sticking with what you know. And the third is that sometimes your best investments are the ones you don’t make.” — Donald Trump