I think there are quite a few good reasons to own ASX shares for the long-term rather than the shorter-term.
For example, every time you buy or sell shares you have to pay brokerage, which is a drain on your wealth.
Every time you sell shares you have to pay tax if you've (hopefully) made a profit.
Every time you re-allocate your money from one share to another share you are essentially betting that the grass is greener on the other side, sometimes it isn't greener.
I'd love to own shares until I'm 100, but there are few that I'd have the confidence to do that with. Here are two that I'd be willing to do that with:
Rural Funds Group (ASX: RFF)
Farmland has been useful for many centuries and I imagine it will continue to be so for the rest of my life. Incredible technological change or horrifying climate change would have to occur to make farmland a useless asset in my lifetime.
Rural Funds owns a variety of farm types including almonds, vineyards, macadamias, cotton, cattle and poultry. The farms are diversified by geography and climate as well.
The real estate investment trust (REIT) is actively adding more farms to its portfolio and investing in productivity improvements where it can to boost the rent from its tenants.
Rural Funds aims to grow its distribution by 4% a year, which means it could be a very good long-term holding for steady income growth.
It currently has a distribution yield of 4.6%.
Washington H. Soul Pattinson and Co. Ltd (ASX: SOL)
Soul Patts has already been around for over a century and I think it could continue to be a very good long-term business because of its diversified investment conglomerate nature.
It has a variety of investments including in energy, construction, telecommunications, financial and listed investment companies (LICs). I expect additional 'pillars' will be added over time.
With no debt and no plans to issue new shares, Soul Patts has an attractive balance sheet with long-term focused management who are very aligned with regular shareholders.
It has a long-term track record of outperforming the market and with the current lower share price I am taking the opportunity to increase my holding of it.
Soul Patts currently has a grossed-up dividend yield of 3.7%.
Foolish takeaway
I really like both of these businesses and plan to buy a lot more shares over the years. At the moment I'm a lot more attracted to Soul Patts because of the recent lower price, and Rural Funds is trading at a (unattractive) sizeable premium to its underlying assets.
