“When we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favorite holding period is forever.”
— Warren Buffett
The wisdom of Warren Buffett reflects a value-based philosophy about investing that says investors are buying shares in a business, and encourages strategic thinking about investment time horizon. Before placing a buy order for a stock, a great question we can ask is whether we would still be comfortable making the investment if we couldn’t sell it for many years?
A “buy-and-hold” approach may call for a time horizon that spans a long period of time — maybe even lasting for a twenty year holding period. Suppose such a “buy-and-hold” investor had looked into buying shares of Edwards Lifesciences Corp (NYSE: EW) back in 2003. Let’s take a look at how such an investment would have worked out for that buy-and-hold investor:
| Start date: | 04/21/2003 |
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| End date: | 04/18/2023 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $2.28 | ||||
| End price/share: | $84.35 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 4,385.96 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 4,385.96 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
| Total return: | 3,599.56% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 19.78% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $369,926.70 | ||||
As shown above, the twenty year investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 19.78%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 20 years ago into $369,926.70 today (as of 04/18/2023). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 3,599.56% (something to think about: how might EW shares perform over the next 20 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]
More investment wisdom to ponder:
“Our job is to find a few intelligent things to do, not to keep up with every damn thing in the world.” — Charlie Munger
