“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 United Rentals Inc (NYSE: URI) back in 2011, bought the stock, ignored the market’s ups and downs, and simply held through to today.
| Start date: | 11/11/2011 |
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| End date: | 11/10/2021 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $26.44 | ||||
| End price/share: | $379.98 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 378.21 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 378.21 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
| Total return: | 1,337.14% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 30.52% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $143,682.71 | ||||
As we can see, the decade-long investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 30.52%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $143,682.71 today (as of 11/10/2021). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 1,337.14% (something to think about: how might URI 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:
“The key to investing is not assessing how much an industry is going to affect society, or how much it will grow, but rather determining the competitive advantage of any given company and, above all, the durability of that advantage.” — Warren Buffett
