2 Super Stocks That Could Make You Richer in 2023 and Beyond

To become a successful investor, you don't need some magic formula or a crystal ball. The uncomplicated part about long-term investing is that it boils down to a few simple guidelines: 

• Buy shares of a diverse group of great businesses.
• Spread your investments across multiple stock markets. 
• Hold on to those companies' stocks for a minimum of three to five years.
• Add to your winners and trim your losers (every investor has them).
• Stay invested through the wider market's inevitable short-term ups and downs.

The complicated part is having the patience to stick with these guidelines when the market is generating robust returns as well as when it's experiencing down periods. Every investor's holdings and financial goals look slightly different. But by consistently building out your portfolio in bull markets, bear markets, and everywhere in between, you can grow your returns with time and beat the investors trying to guess the market's ups and downs.

The other complicated part is finding the right stocks to invest in. If you're looking for amazing companies to buy stock in this month that can make you richer in 2023 and beyond, here are two super stocks to consider. 

1. Pinterest 

While at first glance Pinterest (PINS -0.52%) may not look like an advertising machine, ad revenue is the backbone behind this image-centric social platform. Users can scroll Pinterest for inspiration about everything from home decor to travel to life quotes. Those content searches will also yield a bevy of well-placed image and video ads that relate to whatever the user was searching for in the first place. The hope is that the ads will inspire the user to carry their thought process into an actual purchase. 

Increasingly, Pinterest isn't just a place for people to find inspiration related to their latest interests. Management noted in the company's first-quarter earnings report that approximately 50% of Pinterest's users view the platform as a place to shop. As of last count, Pinterest draws 463 million active users every month.

CEO Bill Ready said on the earnings call that the company's long-term goal is to make every single "pin" -- these are the images or videos that pop up when a user enters a search term on the platform -- a shoppable one. Shoppable pins link to a product or service.

The possibilities for monetization on the platform are virtually endless with everyone from small businesses to household names paying for ad space on Pinterest. In the first quarter of 2023, Pinterest witnessed a 35% surge in user engagement for shoppable pins versus regular pins. Moreover, shopping ad revenue jumped 40% year over year in the first quarter.  

Pinterest is back to healthy monthly active user growth after several quarters that had tough comparisons to heightened growth during the worst of the pandemic. And it's continuing to effectively monetize those users. In the first quarter, average revenue per user (ARPU) was $1.32. While that figure was down 1% from the year-ago quarter, it was up 80% compared to the first quarter of 2019. Broken down by region, Pinterest's first-quarter ARPU was up 3% year over year in the U.S. and Canada and 2% in Europe, while the rest of the world saw a whopping 27% increase in ARPU.

Investors will likely want to see Pinterest get to consistent profitability in the next few years. Right now, it's investing in the growth of its business. That work seems to be paying off, but it will take time to see the full fruits of those labors given the constrained ad spending environment in the current macro landscape.

The company also enacted a workforce reduction in February, so restructuring charges have weighed on the bottom line. Still, the company accumulated revenue of nearly $3 billion in the trailing 12 months alone, while raking in operating cash flow of about $440 million. This business isn't done growing. As it forges a new path for itself in the post-pandemic era, long-term investors may want to come along for the ride. 

2. Booking Holdings 

Booking Holdings (BKNG -0.47%), like any travel-facing business, has dealt with more than its fair share of challenges in the past few years. Now, it's benefiting from the impressive recovery that travel spending has made, particularly over the last 12 to 16 months. As someone who tracks several companies in this space, one of the dynamics I've been fascinated to witness as an investor and consumer is that the pace of spending on travel continues to rise even as concerns about a recession persist. 

Booking Holdings owns and operates a popular family of online booking platforms that includes the likes of Booking.com, Kayak, Priceline, and OpenTable. As one of the leading travel reservation companies in the world, Booking Holdings makes the lion's share of revenue from fees accumulated when people purchase online travel solutions, like accommodation or transportation. It also generates revenue from certain miscellaneous sources like restaurant bookings and advertising.  

In the first quarter of 2023, gross travel bookings shot up 44% year over year across Bookings' family of brands. Travelers also booked 38% more room nights in the first three months of the year than at the same time in 2022. In total, Booking Holdings raked in revenue of $3.8 billion, up 40% year over year, and net income of $266 million for the quarter. In the same quarter in 2022, the company actually clocked a $700 million net loss, so that bottom-line figure was a vast improvement.  

Taking a step back, the trailing 12 months saw Booking Holdings accumulate revenue of $18 billion and net income of $4 billion. It's also brought in operating cash flow in the amount of about $8 billion in that same trailing-12-month window.

No one can say whether the global economy will be able to stave off a recession, although many economists are growing increasingly hopeful that this will be the case. What is becoming clear is that even now, consumers are prioritizing putting their money toward experiences. The multitrillion-dollar travel industry won't evaporate either even if a recession does come, although it would inevitably slow down for a time.

Regardless, if you're looking to invest in mainstay businesses in this space, Booking Holdings' impressive track record that spans nearly three decades as a business certainly makes it a contender for the long-term investor.