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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 ten year period?

Today, let’s look backwards in time to 2013, and take a look at what happened to investors who asked that very question about T-Mobile US Inc (NASD: TMUS), by taking a look at the investment outcome over a ten year holding period.

Start date: 05/15/2013
$10,000

05/15/2013
  $74,821

05/12/2023
End date: 05/12/2023
Start price/share: $19.26
End price/share: $144.12
Starting shares: 519.21
Ending shares: 519.21
Dividends reinvested/share: $0.00
Total return: 648.29%
Average annual return: 22.30%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $74,821.26

As we can see, the ten year investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 22.30%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $74,821.26 today (as of 05/12/2023). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 648.29% (something to think about: how might TMUS shares perform over the next 10 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

One more investment quote to leave you with:
“We ignore outlooks and forecasts… we’re lousy at it and we admit it … everyone else is lousy too, but most people won’t admit it.” — Martin Whitman