Photo credit: commons.wikimedia.org

“I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.”

— Warren Buffett

This inspiring quote from Warren Buffett teaches us the importance of considering our investment time horizon when approaching any given investment: Could we envision ourselves holding the stock we are considering for many years? Even a five year holding period potentially?

For “buy-and-hold” investors taking a long-term view, what’s important isn’t the short-term stock market fluctuations that will inevitably occur, but what happens over the long haul. Looking back 5 years to 2017, investors considering an investment into shares of Salesforce Inc (NYSE: CRM) may have been pondering this very question and thinking about their potential investment result over a full five year time horizon. Here’s how that would have worked out.

Start date: 05/02/2017
$10,000

05/02/2017
$20,203

04/29/2022
End date: 04/29/2022
Start price/share: $87.09
End price/share: $175.94
Starting shares: 114.82
Ending shares: 114.82
Dividends reinvested/share: $0.00
Total return: 102.02%
Average annual return: 15.12%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $20,203.14

As shown above, the five year investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 15.12%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 5 years ago into $20,203.14 today (as of 04/29/2022). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 102.02% (something to think about: how might CRM shares perform over the next 5 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

One more piece of investment wisdom to leave you with:
“One of the funny things about the stock market is that every time one person buys, another sells, and both think they are astute.” — William Feather