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“Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.”

— Warren Buffett

The investment philosophy practiced by Warren Buffett calls for investors to take a long-term horizon when making an investment, such as a ten year holding period (or even longer), and reconsider making the investment in the first place if unable to envision holding the stock for at least five years. Today, we look at how such a long-term strategy would have done for investors in Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd (NYSE: NCLH) back in 2015, holding through to today.

Start date: 04/13/2015
$10,000

04/13/2015
  $3,104

04/10/2025
End date: 04/10/2025
Start price/share: $53.78
End price/share: $16.69
Starting shares: 185.94
Ending shares: 185.94
Dividends reinvested/share: $0.00
Total return: -68.97%
Average annual return: -11.04%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $3,104.19

As we can see, the ten year investment result worked out poorly, with an annualized rate of return of -11.04%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $3,104.19 today (as of 04/10/2025). On a total return basis, that’s a result of -68.97% (something to think about: how might NCLH shares perform over the next 10 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

More investment wisdom to ponder:
“Searching for companies is like looking for grubs under rocks: if you turn over 10 rocks you’ll likely find one grub; if you turn over 20 rocks you’ll find two.” — Peter Lynch