Comedian Steven Wright once said, “I intend to live forever. So far, so good.” It is like that for me and a handful of my actions. I intend to keep them forever, or at least for a long time, and … so far, so good. Here are my caveats: I will probably sell some or all of them when I am in retirement and need extra income, and I can sell them much sooner, if any of them suddenly seem less promising and less likely to keep growing over time. run.
That said, a lot of my properties are the ones I imagine to keep for at least another 10 or 20 years. Here is a look at three of them: Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN)and American Express (NYSE: AXP). You may want to buy or keep some of them – and then wait for a long time too.
Image source: Getty Images.
Apple
Apple has had a history of ups and downs. He was an innovative pioneer in personal computers, but ended up yielding a lot of market share to PC machines. By the end of 1997, its market share had shrunk to just 4.4% of the United States’ PC market – and to just 3.3% of the world market. But it recovered, launched some surprisingly successful new products (such as the iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch) and, in 2018, became the first company to be worth $ 1 trillion. Two years later, in 2020, Apple became the first company to cross the $ 2 trillion line.
It’s a powerhouse, with a sticky environment – once you own an iPhone, you’re likely to choose an Apple smart watch and other Apple products and services. While phones generate much of Apple’s revenue, its services such as App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, iCloud, AppleCare and Apple TV + also contribute a lot – and have higher profit margins. In its last fiscal year, services generated 22% of revenue. The company spent an impressive $ 72.5 billion on the share buyback as well, increasing the value of each remaining share. Apple is an action that I love to take, because I see what it does next.
Amazon.com
It is probably not hard to imagine why I would like to keep my Amazon.com shares forever. The company is a surprisingly dominant retailer – and has developed some other important lines of business as well, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), which grew 29% to $ 11.6 billion in the company’s third quarter and has a market share of 33% in your industry. Want more? Amazon’s Prime Video last year had 65% of respondents to the Global Consumer Survey Statista saying they paid for video content, second only to Netflix and its 85%. Amazon is also looking to enter the healthcare field, having bought PillPack online pharmacy and opened an Amazon Care virtual clinic in Seattle, and has a $ 2 billion venture capital firm that targets young companies facing climate change.
Clearly, with pockets full of money and more money coming in all the time – the pandemic has only helped boost Amazon’s online retail operations, including its delivery of Whole Food groceries – Amazon is in a position to enter many new businesses in a path. Meanwhile, Amazon has hired a lot – adding more than 400,000 workers in the first 10 months of 2020, many of them permanent.
American Express
Finally, there is American Express. It’s not as exciting as Apple and Amazon (at least for me), but its performance and growth prospects give me a warm glow. It was founded in 1850, before the civil war – and still exists, with a market value recently close to $ 94 billion. It is a major player in credit cards, with 114 million cards in effect at the end of 2019. It is among the 15 largest companies in Fortunethe lists of “Best Companies to Work” and “Most Admired Companies in the World”.
American Express is unlikely to grow as fast as Amazon.com or Apple, but it is also not very boring. It acquired fintech company Kabbage, a small business loan specialist, and is expanding its operations in China. Both movements can be engines of growth. Meanwhile, its core businesses are also growing – for example, adding millions of merchants who accept AmEx cards for payments.
American Express is also a solid dividend-paying stock, recently yielding 1.5%. It has also increased this payment by an annual average of 8.2% over the past five years.
These are just three of the many attractive actions that exist. If any of them interest you, take a closer look to see if it’s a good fit for your portfolio.