“When we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favorite holding period is forever.”
— 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 twenty year period?
Today, let’s look backwards in time to 2005, and take a look at what happened to investors who asked that very question about Autodesk Inc (NASD: ADSK), by taking a look at the investment outcome over a twenty year holding period.
| Start date: | 08/01/2005 |
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| End date: | 07/29/2025 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $33.83 | ||||
| End price/share: | $306.61 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 295.60 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 295.60 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
| Total return: | 806.33% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 11.65% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $90,664.40 | ||||
As shown above, the twenty year investment result worked out quite well, with an annualized rate of return of 11.65%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 20 years ago into $90,664.40 today (as of 07/29/2025). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 806.33% (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 investment quote to leave you with:
“I think you have to learn that there’s a company behind every stock, and that there’s only one real reason why stocks go up. Companies go from doing poorly to doing well or small companies grow to large companies.” — Peter Lynch
