“Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”
— Warren Buffett
The wisdom of Warren Buffett reflects a value-based philosophy about investing that says investors are buying shares in a business, and encourages strategic thinking about investment time horizon. Before placing a buy order for a stock, a great question we can ask is whether we would still be comfortable making the investment if we couldn’t sell it for many years?
A “buy-and-hold” approach may call for a time horizon that spans a long period of time — maybe even lasting for a two-decade holding period. Suppose such a “buy-and-hold” investor had looked into buying shares of Biogen Inc (NASD: BIIB) back in 2001. Let’s take a look at how such an investment would have worked out for that buy-and-hold investor:
| Start date: | 10/29/2001 |
|
|||
| End date: | 10/26/2021 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $56.89 | ||||
| End price/share: | $271.12 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 175.78 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 175.78 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
| Total return: | 376.57% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 8.12% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $47,666.54 | ||||
As shown above, the two-decade investment result worked out well, with an annualized rate of return of 8.12%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 20 years ago into $47,666.54 today (as of 10/26/2021). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 376.57% (something to think about: how might BIIB shares perform over the next 20 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]
More investment wisdom to ponder:
“The older I get, the more I see a straight path where I want to go. If you’re going to hunt elephants, don’t get off the trail for a rabbit.” — T. Boone Pickens
