“When we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favorite holding period is forever.”
— Warren Buffett
The investment philosophy practiced by Warren Buffett calls for investors to take a long-term horizon when making an investment, such as a twenty year holding period (or even longer), and reconsider making the investment in the first place if unable to envision holding the stock for at least five years. Today, we look at how such a long-term strategy would have done for investors in Amazon.com Inc (NASD: AMZN) back in 2002, holding through to today.
| Start date: | 05/28/2002 |
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| End date: | 05/25/2022 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $19.06 | ||||
| End price/share: | $2,135.50 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 524.66 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 524.66 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
| Total return: | 11,104.09% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 26.60% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $1,120,044.80 | ||||
As shown above, the twenty year investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 26.60%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 20 years ago into $1,120,044.80 today (as of 05/25/2022). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 11,104.09% (something to think about: how might AMZN shares perform over the next 20 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]
One more piece of investment wisdom to leave you with:
“It’s not always easy to do what’s not popular, but that’s where you make your money. Buy stocks that look bad to less careful investors and hang on until their real value is recognized.” — John Neff
