“When we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favorite holding period is forever.”
— Warren Buffett
The wisdom of Warren Buffett reflects a value-based philosophy about investing that says investors are buying shares in a business, and encourages strategic thinking about investment time horizon. Before placing a buy order for a stock, a great question we can ask is whether we would still be comfortable making the investment if we couldn’t sell it for many years?
A “buy-and-hold” approach may call for a time horizon that spans a long period of time — maybe even lasting for a twenty year holding period. Suppose such a “buy-and-hold” investor had looked into buying shares of Autodesk Inc (NASD: ADSK) back in 2005. Let’s take a look at how such an investment would have worked out for that buy-and-hold investor:
| Start date: | 06/23/2005 |
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| End date: | 06/20/2025 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $35.00 | ||||
| End price/share: | $297.21 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 285.71 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 285.71 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
| Total return: | 749.17% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 11.29% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $84,991.87 | ||||
The above analysis shows the twenty year investment result worked out quite well, with an annualized rate of return of 11.29%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 20 years ago into $84,991.87 today (as of 06/20/2025). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 749.17% (something to think about: how might ADSK shares perform over the next 20 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]
One more piece of investment wisdom to leave you with:
“Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” — Warren Buffett
