“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 decade-long 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 Caesars Entertainment Inc (NASD: CZR), by taking a look at the investment outcome over a decade-long holding period.
| Start date: | 08/06/2015 |
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| End date: | 08/05/2025 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $8.98 | ||||
| End price/share: | $25.17 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 1,113.59 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 1,113.59 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $0.00 | ||||
| Total return: | 180.29% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 10.85% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $28,028.64 | ||||
As we can see, the decade-long investment result worked out quite well, with an annualized rate of return of 10.85%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $28,028.64 today (as of 08/05/2025). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 180.29% (something to think about: how might CZR shares perform over the next 10 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]
One more investment quote to leave you with:
“If a speculator is correct half of the time, he is hitting a good average. Even being right 3 or 4 times out of 10 should yield a person a fortune if he has the sense to cut his losses quickly on the ventures where he is wrong.” — Bernard Baruch