“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 ten year holding period for an investor who was considering Netflix Inc (NASD: NFLX) back in 2015, bought the stock, ignored the market’s ups and downs, and simply held through to today.
| Start date: | 06/09/2015 |
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| End date: | 06/06/2025 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $92.45 | ||||
| End price/share: | $1,241.47 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 108.17 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 108.17 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
| Total return: | 1,242.86% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 29.66% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $134,295.10 | ||||
As we can see, the ten year investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 29.66%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $134,295.10 today (as of 06/06/2025). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 1,242.86% (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:
“If a speculator is correct half of the time, he is hitting a good average. Even being right 3 or 4 times out of 10 should yield a person a fortune if he has the sense to cut his losses quickly on the ventures where he is wrong.” — Bernard Baruch
