10 Brilliant Growth Stocks to Buy Now and Hold for the Long Term | The Motley Fool

Are you looking for passive growth investments with staying power that you won’t need to constantly monitor? That’s a combination that doesn’t often co-exist for any individual stock. There are some exceptions, however.

Here’s a rundown of 10 such growth stocks that would be at home in nearly any growth-minded investor’s portfolio.

Still worthy after all these years

It’s such a commonly suggested pick that it’s almost become a cliché. Nevertheless, e-commerce and cloud computing giant Amazon (AMZN 1.26%) remains one of the market’s most promising long-term growth prospects.

Yes, plenty of other companies like Walmart and Shopify are finally figuring out how to keep Amazon in check. These other players aren’t exactly dethroning Amazon, though. Market research outfit Digital Commerce 360 reports Amazon’s leading share of North America’s e-commerce market is holding strong at around 40%, while Synergy Research Group says Amazon Web Services’ share of global cloud computing is a market-leading 29%. Amazon may not be adding market share on either front, but being the biggest name in both businesses helps it maintain its share of each.

As long as the e-commerce and cloud computing markets keep growing — and they’re each expected to — Amazon remains a serious growth engine.

Plugged into the semiconductor industry’s ongoing growth

While Amazon is a household name, Lam Research (LRCX 0.64%) is anything but. Don’t let its lack of notoriety fool you, though. It’s an important player within the ever-growing semiconductor market.

No, Lam doesn’t make microchips. It makes the equipment used to manufacture microchips. Thin-film layering, plasma etching, wafer-cleaning, plus the software needed to operate these technologies are all in its wheelhouse, and more. Chipmakers Intel, Samsung, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing are some of its customers, for perspective.

Yes, other companies also make semiconductor manufacturing tools. Making microchips is a complicated process with many different specialized steps, though. Few other players in the business are able to offer the specific solutions that Lam Research can, however, just as no other name in the business can provide ASML‘s ultraviolet lithography technology, or offer Axcelis Technologies‘ ion implanters. We need all these tools, including Lam’s.

And that need isn’t going away anytime soon. It’s only going to grow, in fact. An outlook from Precedence Research suggests the worldwide semiconductor market is set to double in size between now and 2034.

Growth in a social and economic silo is still growth

Amazon may be the powerhouse e-commerce name where you live, but that’s not the case everywhere. In its home country of China, Alibaba (BABA 0.07%) is king, with collective control of about 40% of that online shopping market (according to numbers from wealth management firm DBS Treasures). It’s doing pretty well with several of China’s neighboring countries, too. All told, Alibaba’s Tmall and Taobao e-commerce platforms did nearly $20 billion worth of business last year, up 29% year over year.

And yet, this company’s got far more ways to make money. It operates a logistics and delivery arm, a digital entertainment business, and perhaps most important, a cloud computing division that’s also waist-deep into artificial intelligence. Remember the Qwen platform that posed a credible threat to ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and then-buzzy DeepSeek earlier this year? Well, Qwen is Alibaba’s developmental AI.

As long as the Pacific Rim chooses to build its economy and technological landscape in a manner that’s somewhat walled off from the Western world’s, Alibaba stock is a growth investment that’s parallel to — rather than overlapping with — Amazon.

The growing norm in operating rooms

Given how technology has become the centerpiece of most aspects of our lives, it should come as no surprise that it’s also now frequently found within the healthcare industry. It’s even found within operating rooms, in the tools used by surgeons.

And one company dominates this sliver of the market: Intuitive Surgical (ISRG -2.68%). It makes the da Vinci surgical robot that’s becoming the go-to solution for performing a growing number of surgical procedures ranging from hysterectomies to mitral vale repair to gastric sleeves to colostomies, just to name a few. Intuitive Surgical reports its da Vinci robots helped perform nearly 2.7 million procedures last year, up 17% from 2023’s count.

Here’s the thing — this still only scratches the surface of the tool’s potential. Intuitive Surgical regularly adds capabilities to the da Vinci’s toolkit at the same time more and more surgeons become qualified to use it, making them more likely to use this tech on one of the 300 million surgical procedures performed worldwide every year. Simultaneously, Intuitive Surgical is still developing new solutions like the Ion for lung biopsies and Hub, which records and shares surgical procedures.

Analysts are calling for 25% top-line growth from Intuitive Surgical this year, to be followed by 15% and 17% revenue growth in 2026 and 2027, respectively. This is likely only a taste of what’s to come further down the road, as this tech continues to prove itself. 

You’ve actually never heard of most software

You’re certainly familiar with Microsoft‘s Windows operating system, and you may well be a regular user of its office productivity tools like Word and Excel. What you may not realize, however, is that most software is so industry-specific that you’ve likely never even heard of it.

Case in point: Cadence Design Systems‘ (CDNS -0.67%) Fidelity CFD (computational fluid dynamics) that digitally tests the behavior of fluids under certain conditions, or its Allegro X Design Platform, used to make printed circuit boards. Most people would never need such a specialized solution. But the few who need these tools desperately need them to do their job, and will pay a premium to gain access to them.

This marketability is only part of the argument for buying and holding this stock for the long haul, however. Even more compelling is the fact that 80% of Cadence’s revenue is now recurring revenue, meaning its customers are making ongoing, regular payments to access this software. It’s much easier — and cheaper — to retain a customer than win one in the first place.

A new kind of networking solution

Cisco Systems may be the biggest name in the networking business, but it’s not necessarily the best investment opportunity within the industry. That honor arguably belongs to smaller Arista Networks (ANET 2.38%).

At first blush, the two companies seem similar enough. As was noted, both are networking solutions providers, offering a range of switches and buffers. There is a nuanced but important difference between these two outfits, though. That is, most of Arista’s tech is built around its Extensible Operating System that can be updated and/or rewritten as merited. Because its switches are always equipped to meet ever-changing functionality needs, they will remain useful for longer. This ultimately translates into lower lifetime equipment costs for campuses, telecommunications service providers, and the like.

Analysts are looking for sales growth of more than 19% this year and next, although this pace of growth is apt to last far longer in light of the solution that Arista brings to the table.

Think small for big growth and big profits

Most investors have heard of Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX -2.24%). Most people, however, would be hard-pressed to name a single drug it makes. But that’s kind of the point. It’s predominantly a specialty pharma company, focusing on relatively rare diseases and underserved markets.

Vertex is really, really good at what it does. Last year’s revenue of just over $11 billion was up 12% from 2023’s sales, and the company is looking for sales of nearly $12 billion this year following two key approvals. If all goes as expected, 2025 is going to mark the pharma company’s 11th straight year of double-digit revenue growth. Given its pipeline that includes two phase 3 clinical trials in addition to four phase 2 trials, however, it’s certainly possible that firmly profitable Vertex can keep the streak alive for far longer than that.

If it works, it works

You’ve probably never heard of Coupang (CPNG -1.22%). But don’t sweat it. It’s relatively new as well as relatively small. And, although headquartered in the United States, it mostly serves the South Korean market. The company did $30 billion worth of business last year, up 24%.

But what is it? Like so many other technology companies these days, it’s a little bit of everything. Its core business is e-commerce and delivery of online orders, but its distinguishing detail is its exposure to the grocery and restaurant-prepared food delivery market. Yet it’s also a major middleman for entertainment events — digital as well as in-person — an online payment platform, and a seller of luxury goods.

The thing is, this disjointed assembly of ventures seems to work, perhaps because the company’s management fully understands its core geographic market and its consumers.

Electric vehicle mania is still alive and well … in China

U.S. consumers may have lost their lovin’ feelin’ for electric vehicles, just as the U.S. electric vehicle industry lost much of its political support (in the form of subsidies). But this isn’t the case outside of the United States. The rest of the world still loves the idea of emissions-free electric vehicles, including most foreign governments.

And it’s particularly true in China, where EV maker Nio (NIO 5.69%) is located, and where it does the bulk of its growing business. It delivered nearly 222,000 electric cars in 2024, up 39% from the previous year’s count. This growth pace has persisted into the first half of this year as well, boosted by sustained demand for electric vehicles in China and its neighbors. Indeed, the International Energy Administration says electric vehicles accounted for nearly half of China’s automobile sales in 2024.

There’s plenty more where that came from, too. The IEA adds that by 2030, this proportion should reach 80% of the country’s total vehicle sales.

The data center industry can’t grow without it

Finally, add Applied Digital (APLD -1.66%) to your list of brilliant growth stocks to buy and hold for the long haul.

It’s an opportunity hiding in plain sight. The rapid growth of artificial intelligence data centers? Most investors are so focused on the technology being used inside them that they’re not even thinking about who’s building the buildings themselves. It’s Applied Digital, for one, which is arguably the best and most (if not only) investment-worthy one.

It’s easier said than done. As you likely know, AI data centers are incredibly power-hungry, so much so that onsite nuclear power is being considered as a cost-effective source of the electricity they need. Applied Digital isn’t just stacking up processors. It’s figuring out how to provide the power that data centers need at the lowest cost possible.

This might put things in perspective. Although this year’s forecasted top-line growth of more than 34% is likely to cool to nearly nil next year, this company’s revenue is expected to more than double in 2027, and then triple this year’s sales in 2028.