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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 investment philosophy practiced by Warren Buffett calls for investors to take a long-term horizon when making an investment, such as a decade-long holding period (or even longer), and reconsider making the investment in the first place if unable to envision holding the stock for at least five years. Today, we look at how such a long-term strategy would have done for investors in Illumina Inc (NASD: ILMN) back in 2014, holding through to today.

Start date: 01/27/2014
$10,000

01/27/2014
  $10,050

01/24/2024
End date: 01/24/2024
Start price/share: $140.25
End price/share: $141.01
Starting shares: 71.30
Ending shares: 71.30
Dividends reinvested/share: $0.00
Total return: 0.54%
Average annual return: 0.05%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $10,050.10

As shown above, the decade-long investment result worked out as follows, with an annualized rate of return of 0.05%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $10,050.10 today (as of 01/24/2024). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 0.54% (something to think about: how might ILMN shares perform over the next 10 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

One more piece of investment wisdom to leave you with:
“Although it’s easy to forget sometimes, a share is not a lottery ticket… it’s part-ownership of a business.” — Peter Lynch