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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

One of the most important things investors can learn from Warren Buffett, is about how they approach their time horizon for an investment into a stock under consideration. Because immediately after buying shares of a given stock, investors will then be able to check on the day-to-day (and even minute-by-minute) market value. Some days the stock market will be up, other days down. These daily fluctuations can often distract from the long-term view. Today, we look at the result of a decade-long holding period for an investor who was considering Netflix Inc (NASD: NFLX) back in 2014, bought the stock, ignored the market’s ups and downs, and simply held through to today.

Start date: 08/08/2014
$10,000

08/08/2014
  $96,044

08/07/2024
End date: 08/07/2024
Start price/share: $63.69
End price/share: $611.48
Starting shares: 157.01
Ending shares: 157.01
Dividends reinvested/share: $0.00
Total return: 860.09%
Average annual return: 25.37%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $96,044.90

As we can see, the decade-long investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 25.37%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $96,044.90 today (as of 08/07/2024). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 860.09% (something to think about: how might NFLX shares perform over the next 10 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

More investment wisdom to ponder:
“Cash is a fact, profit is an opinion.” — Alfred Rappaport