“Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 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 ten year period?
Today, let’s look backwards in time to 2015, and take a look at what happened to investors who asked that very question about Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASD: AMD), by taking a look at the investment outcome over a ten year holding period.
| Start date: | 07/06/2015 |
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| End date: | 07/02/2025 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $2.47 | ||||
| End price/share: | $138.52 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 4,048.58 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 4,048.58 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
| Total return: | 5,508.10% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 49.60% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $560,837.02 | ||||
As shown above, the ten year investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 49.60%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $560,837.02 today (as of 07/02/2025). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 5,508.10% (something to think about: how might AMD shares perform over the next 10 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]
One more piece of investment wisdom to leave you with:
“People who invest make money for themselves; people who speculate make money for their brokers.” — Benjamin Graham
