A lot of folks think making bank in the stock market is all about having the right vision.
But the reason people lose money is pretty straightforward: they bought the right stuff but couldn’t hold on.
In 2020, plenty of people jumped on Apple and Microsoft, but when the market dipped, they bailed, and those gains ended up not being theirs.
The ones who raked in serious cash in the stock market mostly did just one thing: found the gems worth holding long-term, bought in, and did nothing else.
The key question here is what qualifies as a "worth holding" asset?
My criteria are pretty simple: the business must be making more and more money without relying on subsidies; the market should still be growing; and it needs to have pricing power to pass costs onto customers.
The simplest answer? Two ETFs will do the trick.
The Nasdaq 100, ticker QQQ, has had an annualized return of about 19.5% over the past decade.
The S&P 500, ticker VOO, has an annualized return of about 14.4%.
These two indices don't require you to pick stocks or time the market; just hold on tight.
If you want to add a few individual stocks beyond the ETFs, here are some that have proven themselves through full bull and bear cycles:
Apple has seen a total return of 938% over the past decade, with the iPhone and service business locking in users, giving it serious pricing power and a moat that hasn’t changed much in ten years.
Microsoft's stock price has surged 200% in the last five years, thanks to Azure cloud services and Office subscriptions, with cash flow so stable, it’s the envy of many.
Nvidia has nearly an 18000% total return over the past decade. As a core supplier of AI computing infrastructure, it’ll see short-term volatility, but currently, there’s no turning point in sight for its long-term logic.
For these assets, the only question you need to answer after buying is: can you hold for 10 years?
But the reason people lose money is pretty straightforward: they bought the right stuff but couldn’t hold on.
In 2020, plenty of people jumped on Apple and Microsoft, but when the market dipped, they bailed, and those gains ended up not being theirs.
The ones who raked in serious cash in the stock market mostly did just one thing: found the gems worth holding long-term, bought in, and did nothing else.
The key question here is what qualifies as a "worth holding" asset?
My criteria are pretty simple: the business must be making more and more money without relying on subsidies; the market should still be growing; and it needs to have pricing power to pass costs onto customers.
The simplest answer? Two ETFs will do the trick.
The Nasdaq 100, ticker QQQ, has had an annualized return of about 19.5% over the past decade.
The S&P 500, ticker VOO, has an annualized return of about 14.4%.
These two indices don't require you to pick stocks or time the market; just hold on tight.
If you want to add a few individual stocks beyond the ETFs, here are some that have proven themselves through full bull and bear cycles:
Apple has seen a total return of 938% over the past decade, with the iPhone and service business locking in users, giving it serious pricing power and a moat that hasn’t changed much in ten years.
Microsoft's stock price has surged 200% in the last five years, thanks to Azure cloud services and Office subscriptions, with cash flow so stable, it’s the envy of many.
Nvidia has nearly an 18000% total return over the past decade. As a core supplier of AI computing infrastructure, it’ll see short-term volatility, but currently, there’s no turning point in sight for its long-term logic.
For these assets, the only question you need to answer after buying is: can you hold for 10 years?