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“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
$10,000

06/13/2011
$132,544

06/10/2021
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