Regardless of travelling sideways in 2022, the Cochlear Limited (ASX: COH) share price has rocketed throughout the past decade.
In fact, the hearing solutions company's shares have almost quadrupled in value, representing strong long-term growth.
During August 2021, Cochlear shares reached an all-time high of $257.76 before travelling lower soon afterwards. While the company's shares have somewhat recovered, they are still a tad off moving again into uncharted territory for now.
Nonetheless, let's wind the clock back and see how much you would have made if you'd invested $10,000 in Cochlear shares 10 years ago.
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How much would your initial investment be worth now?
If you'd spent $10,000 on Cochlear shares this time in 2012, you would have bought them up for $61.86 each. The long-term investment would have given you approximately 161 shares without reinvesting the dividends or topping up along the way.
Looking at yesterday's market close, the Cochlear share price finished at $219.33 apiece.
This means that those 161 shares would be worth $35,312.13 right now.
In percentage terms, the initial investment implies a return of about 253% or an average return of 13.45% per year.
On the other hand, if you'd invested the same amount into an ASX 200 index-tracking fund, this would have netted you $17,577.82.
Going back to percentages, this represents a gain of 75% or a yearly average of 5.80% across a 10-year period.
What about Cochlear's dividends?
From 2012 to halfway through 2022, Cochlear has made a total of 19 bi-annual dividend payments to shareholders.
Its most recent dividend distribution was its third highest interim dividend declared by the board despite COVID-19 disruptions.
Adding those 19 dividend payments gives us a total amount of $25.21 per share. Calculating the number of shares owned against the dividend payments gives us a figure of $4,058.81.
When putting both the initial investment gains and dividend distribution, you would have roughly $39,370.94 or $29,370.94 profit.
As you can see, investing in Cochlear shares would have almost quadrupled what you would have gotten from investing in an ASX 200 index-tracking fund ($29,370.94 vs. $7,577.82).
Cochlear share price snapshot
Over the past 12 months, the Cochlear share price has edged 1% higher and is up around 1.5% year to date.
Cochlear has a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 54.64 and commands a market capitalisation of roughly $14.19 billion.
