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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

The above quote from Warren Buffett is timeless, and brings into focus the choice about time horizon that any investor should think about before buying a stock they are considering. Behind every stock is an actual business; what will that business look like over a decade-long period?

Today, let’s look backwards in time to 2012, and take a look at what happened to investors who asked that very question about Align Technology Inc (NASD: ALGN), by taking a look at the investment outcome over a decade-long holding period.

Start date: 06/29/2012
$10,000

06/29/2012
$72,310

06/28/2022
End date: 06/28/2022
Start price/share: $33.46
End price/share: $241.92
Starting shares: 298.86
Ending shares: 298.86
Dividends reinvested/share: $0.00
Total return: 623.01%
Average annual return: 21.87%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $72,310.85

As shown above, the decade-long investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 21.87%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $72,310.85 today (as of 06/28/2022). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 623.01% (something to think about: how might ALGN shares perform over the next 10 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

More investment wisdom to ponder:
“If a speculator is correct half of the time, he is hitting a good average. Even being right 3 or 4 times out of 10 should yield a person a fortune if he has the sense to cut his losses quickly on the ventures where he is wrong.” — Bernard Baruch