“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 2018, investors considering an investment into shares of Adobe Inc (NASD: ADBE) 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: | 03/13/2018 |
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End date: | 03/10/2023 | ||||
Start price/share: | $219.76 | ||||
End price/share: | $329.30 | ||||
Starting shares: | 45.50 | ||||
Ending shares: | 45.50 | ||||
Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
Total return: | 49.85% | ||||
Average annual return: | 8.43% | ||||
Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
Ending investment: | $14,981.48 |
As we can see, the five year investment result worked out well, with an annualized rate of return of 8.43%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 5 years ago into $14,981.48 today (as of 03/10/2023). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 49.85% (something to think about: how might ADBE 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:
“A 10% decline in the market is fairly common, it happens about once a year. Investors who realize this are less likely to sell in a panic, and more likely to remain invested, benefitting from the wealthbuilding power of stocks.” — Christopher Davis