Photo credit: commons.wikimedia.org

“I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five 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 five year period?

Today, let’s look backwards in time to 2017, and take a look at what happened to investors who asked that very question about T-Mobile US Inc (NASD: TMUS), by taking a look at the investment outcome over a five year holding period.

Start date: 01/20/2017
$10,000

01/20/2017
$17,678

01/19/2022
End date: 01/19/2022
Start price/share: $59.62
End price/share: $105.38
Starting shares: 167.73
Ending shares: 167.73
Dividends reinvested/share: $0.00
Total return: 76.75%
Average annual return: 12.07%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $17,678.56

As we can see, the five year investment result worked out quite well, with an annualized rate of return of 12.07%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 5 years ago into $17,678.56 today (as of 01/19/2022). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 76.75% (something to think about: how might TMUS shares perform over the next 5 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

More investment wisdom to ponder:
“People who invest make money for themselves; people who speculate make money for their brokers.” — Benjamin Graham