“Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.”
— Warren Buffett
The Warren Buffett investment philosophy calls for a long-term investment horizon, where a decade-long holding period, or even longer, would fit right into the strategy. How would such a strategy have worked out for an investment into Biogen Inc (NASD: BIIB)? Today, we examine the outcome of a decade-long investment into the stock back in 2015.
| Start date: | 12/16/2015 |
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| End date: | 12/15/2025 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $299.29 | ||||
| End price/share: | $175.74 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 33.41 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 33.41 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
| Total return: | -41.28% | ||||
| Average annual return: | -5.18% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $5,873.17 | ||||
As shown above, the decade-long investment result worked out poorly, with an annualized rate of return of -5.18%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $5,873.17 today (as of 12/15/2025). On a total return basis, that’s a result of -41.28% (something to think about: how might BIIB shares perform over the next 10 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]
One more investment quote to leave you with:
“As in roulette, same is true of the stock trader, who will find that the expense of trading weights the dice heavily against him.” — Benjamin Graham
