“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 2015, and take a look at what happened to investors who asked that very question about Keysight Technologies Inc (NYSE: KEYS), by taking a look at the investment outcome over a decade-long holding period.
| Start date: | 03/19/2015 |
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| End date: | 03/18/2025 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $38.72 | ||||
| End price/share: | $152.73 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 258.26 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 258.26 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
| Total return: | 294.45% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 14.70% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $39,442.15 | ||||
As we can see, the decade-long investment result worked out quite well, with an annualized rate of return of 14.70%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $39,442.15 today (as of 03/18/2025). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 294.45% (something to think about: how might KEYS 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:
“Taking risks is really the only way to consistently achieve above-average returns.” — Sam Zell
