As a big fan of buy and hold investing, I periodically pick out a number of popular ASX shares to see how much an investment 10 years ago would be worth today.
While not all shares beat the market, two that have are named below. Here's how much a $10,000 investment a decade ago would be worth now:
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Pilbara Minerals Ltd (ASX: PLS)
This lithium miner has been a sensational performer over the last decade. During this time, the company has gone from a mineral exploration company seeking "to acquire interests in mineral projects having good prospects for near-term development" to one of the world's largest lithium miners.
Interestingly, 10 years ago, lithium wasn't even on the menu for Pilbara Minerals. Gold and copper appeared to be the most likely path for the company but all that changed a couple of years later with the acquisition of the Pilgangoora Tantalum-Lithium Project.
This proved to be one of the best decisions the company would ever make and has helped drive the Pilbara Minerals share price materially higher since then. So much so, the company's shares have generated an average annual return of approximately 65% over the period.
This would have turned a $10,000 investment in 2012 into a whopping $1.5 million today.
Xero Limited (ASX: XRO)
Another market beater over the last 10 years has been cloud accounting platform provider Xero.
Thanks to the shift from accounting on Excel spreadsheets or paper to online, Xero has been growing its subscriber numbers at a consistently strong rate since 2012. This has led to the platform hosting a massive 3.5 million users globally at the last count.
This has underpinned strong revenue growth, which has led to its shares delivering mouth-watering returns for investors over the period. Over the 10 years, Xero's shares have generated an average annual return of 28.6%. This would have turned a $10,000 investment into almost $250,000.
