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“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
$10,000

03/13/2018
  $14,981

03/10/2023
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