10 Great Stocks for the Next 10 Years

Warren Buffett aims to hold stocks “forever.” We’re a bit less patient.

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Warren Buffett aims to hold stocks “forever.” We’re a bit less patient. But we like playing the long game: picking a few solid companies, sticking with them through tough times and hanging on for years, even a decade or more. Investing for the long haul can smooth out the risks of buying individual stocks, which may tumble or stay depressed for ages before taking off. A company’s innovations may also take years to bear fruit. Moreover, businesses with attractive growth often trade at lofty prices that may not be sustainable. The longer you stick with a stock that has stumbled, however, the greater the opportunity to recoup losses (assuming the business rebounds as well). With dividend-paying stocks, you can also pocket a bit of income while you wait.

All of the following 10 companies possess attractive long-range prospects: Each should be able to expand its sales and profits at rates well above the market average for years. And these companies are not too big to have a reasonable shot at quadrupling in market-value over the next decade (meaning annualized gains of 15%, or roughly double the projected return, including dividends, of the broad U.S. market).

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Investing for the next decade doesn’t mean you can buy these stocks then forget about them. You’ll need to follow them closely and may have to sell if cracks emerge in the business. Still, if these companies can keep building on their recent successes, they have a good shot at delivering superb returns over the long run, turning short-term dips in stock prices into faint and distant memories.

Disclaimer

Stocks are listed alphabetically. Share prices and other data are as of September 30. Price-earnings ratios are based on estimated year-ahead earnings

Daren Fonda
Senior Associate Editor, Kiplinger's Personal Finance
Daren joined Kiplinger in July 2015 after spending more than 20 years in New York City as a business and financial writer. He spent seven years at Time magazine and joined SmartMoney in 2007, where he wrote about investing and contributed car reviews to the magazine. Daren also worked as a writer in the fund industry for Janus Capital and Fidelity Investments and has been licensed as a Series 7 securities representative.