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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

Investors can learn a lot from Warren Buffett, whose above quote teaches the importance of thinking about investment time horizon, and asking ourselves before buying any given stock: can we envision holding onto it for years — even a ten year holding period possibly?

Suppose a “buy-and-hold” investor was considering an investment into Fiserv Inc (NYSE: FI) back in 2014: back then, such an investor may have been pondering this very same question. Had they answered “yes” to a full ten year investment time horizon and then actually held for these past 10 years, here’s how that investment would have turned out.

Start date: 05/15/2014
$10,000

05/15/2014
  $25,739

05/14/2024
End date: 05/14/2024
Start price/share: $59.69
End price/share: $153.68
Starting shares: 167.53
Ending shares: 167.53
Dividends reinvested/share: $0.00
Total return: 157.46%
Average annual return: 9.91%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $25,739.31

As we can see, the ten year investment result worked out well, with an annualized rate of return of 9.91%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $25,739.31 today (as of 05/14/2024). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 157.46% (something to think about: how might FI 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:
“Value investing is at its core the marriage of a contrarian streak and a calculator.” — Seth Klarman