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

The Warren Buffett investment philosophy calls for a long-term investment horizon, where a five year holding period, or even longer, would fit right into the strategy. How would such a strategy have worked out for an investment into Amazon.com Inc (NASD: AMZN)? Today, we examine the outcome of a five year investment into the stock back in 2018.

Start date: 03/14/2018
$10,000

03/14/2018
  $11,620

03/13/2023
End date: 03/13/2023
Start price/share: $79.55
End price/share: $92.43
Starting shares: 125.71
Ending shares: 125.71
Dividends reinvested/share: $0.00
Total return: 16.19%
Average annual return: 3.05%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $11,620.91

As we can see, the five year investment result worked out as follows, with an annualized rate of return of 3.05%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 5 years ago into $11,620.91 today (as of 03/13/2023). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 16.19% (something to think about: how might AMZN 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