“When we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favorite holding period is forever.”
— Warren Buffett
The wisdom of Warren Buffett reflects a value-based philosophy about investing that says investors are buying shares in a business, and encourages strategic thinking about investment time horizon. Before placing a buy order for a stock, a great question we can ask is whether we would still be comfortable making the investment if we couldn’t sell it for many years?
A “buy-and-hold” approach may call for a time horizon that spans a long period of time — maybe even lasting for a twenty year holding period. Suppose such a “buy-and-hold” investor had looked into buying shares of Dollar Tree Inc (NASD: DLTR) back in 2004. Let’s take a look at how such an investment would have worked out for that buy-and-hold investor:
| Start date: | 12/17/2004 |
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| End date: | 12/16/2024 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $9.48 | ||||
| End price/share: | $70.03 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 1,054.85 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 1,054.85 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
| Total return: | 638.71% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 10.51% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $73,876.65 | ||||
As we can see, the twenty year investment result worked out quite well, with an annualized rate of return of 10.51%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 20 years ago into $73,876.65 today (as of 12/16/2024). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 638.71% (something to think about: how might DLTR shares perform over the next 20 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]
Another great investment quote to think about:
“You’ve got to be careful if you don’t know where you’re going, ’cause you might not get there.” — Yogi Berra
