“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 decade-long period?
Today, let’s look backwards in time to 2014, and take a look at what happened to investors who asked that very question about Boston Scientific Corp. (NYSE: BSX), by taking a look at the investment outcome over a decade-long holding period.
| Start date: | 06/20/2014 |
|
|||
| End date: | 06/18/2024 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $12.71 | ||||
| End price/share: | $76.31 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 786.78 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 786.78 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
| Total return: | 500.39% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 19.63% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $60,064.01 | ||||
As we can see, the decade-long investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 19.63%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $60,064.01 today (as of 06/18/2024). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 500.39% (something to think about: how might BSX shares perform over the next 10 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]
More investment wisdom to ponder:
“In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run, it is a weighing machine.” — Benjamin Graham
