(Excerpt from Last Man Standing by Morgan Housel)
… compounding is just returns leveraged with time.
Earning a 20% return in one year is neat. Doing it for three years is cool. Earning 20% per year for 30 years creates something so extraordinary it’s hard to fathom. Time is the investing factor that separates, “Hey, nice work,” from “Wait, what? Are you serious?”
The time component of compounding is why 99% of Warren Buffett’s net worth came after his 50th birthday, and 97% came after he turned 65.
Yes, he’s a good investor.
But a lot of people are good investors.
Buffett’s secret is that he’s been a good investor for 80 years. His secret is time. Most investing secrets are.
Once you accept that compounding is where the magic happens, and realize how critical time is to compounding, the most important question to answer as an investor is not, “How can I earn the highest returns?” It’s, “What are the best returns I can sustain for the longest period of time?”