Can you become a millionaire by investing in stocks? Absolutely. But there are a couple of key rules to follow. It's important to diversify your investments across a broad range of solid companies, and it's key to invest for the long term. You'll have a much better chance of reaching your goal if you hold on to quality stocks for a period of 10 years or longer than if you bail out after a few weeks or months.
Of course, it's possible that even by following these guidelines you won't pocket millions -- but there's a very strong likelihood you'll still find yourself in a fantastic financial position down the road if you choose wisely now and stick with investing for the long haul.
Today, a great way to offer your portfolio a boost or get started with a bang if you're new to investing is to buy a couple of leading technology stocks that are likely to continue their leadership well into the future. I'm thinking of two with terrific earnings and share performance track records, and plenty of potential ahead. These two players won't do the job alone -- but it's unlikely that any one stock will make you a millionaire unless you invest a tremendous amount in just that player. And that's much too risky. These top tech stocks could help make you a millionaire, though. Let's find out more.
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1. Amazon
Amazon (AMZN 0.18%) is one of my favorite tech stocks because of its diversification and leadership in two high-growth areas. The company dominates in both e-commerce and cloud computing. On top of this, Amazon also is on the road to becoming one of the biggest winners in the hot growth area of artificial intelligence (AI).
In e-commerce, Amazon's Prime subscription program and focus on keeping prices low and delivery fast should help it stay ahead. Annual sales events such as Prime Day help the company bring in new members -- and the member retention rate is high. Over the first three months of 2023, 99% of Prime members renewed their memberships for a second year, according to Statista. Since members pay for Prime, it's in their best interest to do as much of their shopping as possible on Amazon -- all of this points to more potential growth ahead.
As for cloud computing, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the market leader worldwide, and its focus on AI has already started to add even more growth to the picture. AWS recently reached an annual revenue run rate of $105 billion thanks to its AI products and services -- AWS offers everything from chips to a full service called Amazon Bedrock.
These businesses have helped Amazon grow revenue and net income into the billions of dollars -- and the company's revamping of its cost structure a couple of years ago makes it more efficient than ever. All of this makes Amazon a no-brainer buy for your millionaire-maker portfolio.
2. Meta Platforms
Meta Platforms (META -0.59%), like Amazon, is a leader in its field. As owner of Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp, the company is a social media giant. More than 3.2 billion people around the world use at least one of these apps every day.
Importantly, Meta has a rock-solid moat, or competitive advantage, that should keep it in the top spot. It's very difficult for users to drop Facebook or WhatsApp, for example, because they know that if they do, many of their contacts won't be present on other platforms -- this offers confidence that Meta will maintain its leadership.
But Meta isn't relying on this moat alone. The company is working to make its social media apps better and better thanks to its focus on AI. The goal is to have an AI available to suit everyone's needs -- from professional to leisure -- down the road. Meta already launched its first AI assistant, backed by its own large language model, and has said that its biggest investment area this year is in AI.
How does all of this translate into earnings? Meta sells advertising to advertisers, who hope to reach all of us where they can find us: on Meta's apps. By making these apps better and better through AI, we'll use them more -- and advertisers may therefore spend more.
As it stands, advertising already has brought Meta billions of dollars in earnings. And the company even felt comfortable enough with its financial situation earlier this year to launch its first-ever dividend -- saying it can afford to both reward shareholders and invest in growth. So, through Meta, you can collect dividends, and benefit from what likely will be a long period of growth down the road.
