Photo credit: commons.wikimedia.org

“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 lululemon athletica inc (NASD: LULU) back in 2015, bought the stock, ignored the market’s ups and downs, and simply held through to today.

Start date: 05/15/2015
$10,000

05/15/2015
  $48,980

05/14/2025
End date: 05/14/2025
Start price/share: $64.49
End price/share: $315.84
Starting shares: 155.06
Ending shares: 155.06
Dividends reinvested/share: $0.00
Total return: 389.75%
Average annual return: 17.21%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $48,980.65

As we can see, the decade-long investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 17.21%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $48,980.65 today (as of 05/14/2025). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 389.75% (something to think about: how might LULU shares perform over the next 10 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

More investment wisdom to ponder:
“A risk-reward ratio is important, but so is an aggravation-satisfaction ratio.” — Muriel Siebert