“Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.”
— 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 decade-long holding period for an investor who was considering Netflix Inc (NASD: NFLX) back in 2011, bought the stock, ignored the market’s ups and downs, and simply held through to today.
| Start date: | 06/13/2011 |
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| End date: | 06/10/2021 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $36.75 | ||||
| End price/share: | $487.27 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 272.11 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 272.11 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
| Total return: | 1,225.90% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 29.49% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $132,544.68 | ||||
As we can see, the decade-long investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 29.49%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $132,544.68 today (as of 06/10/2021). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 1,225.90% (something to think about: how might NFLX shares perform over the next 10 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]
One more investment quote to leave you with:
“October is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.” — Mark Twain
