Contrary to a common assumption, making big investment gains doesn't necessarily require constant monitoring of your portfolio or taking on extreme risks. Scaling back your risk and dialing back your trading activity, in fact, could actually improve your overall performance. The key is simply finding the right buy-and-hold stocks and actually holding on to them long enough to let time do most of the work.
Here's a rundown of three stocks that not only offer above-average wealth-building potential, but are easy to own without frequent check-ins on how they're doing or the rhetoric surrounding them.
1. Shopify
Still priced at more than 60 times this year's expected per-share earnings of $1.47 despite the stock's 26% pullback from its February peak, Shopify (SHOP 0.09%) could be an intimidating name to step into here.
Don't be scared though. Given its likely future, this may be all the discount you're going to get anytime soon.
NASDAQ: SHOP
Key Data Points
Shopify helps businesses of all types and sizes establish their own e-commerce presence. It was largely launched as an alternative to Amazon's heavy-handed online mall, empowering its clients with tools ranging from inventory management, payment processing, marketing tools, and of course, online shopping carts.
Shopify's tech facilitated the sale of $293 billion worth of goods and services last year, translating into $8.9 billion worth of revenue for itself. Those figures were up 24% and 26% year over year, respectively, extending long-established growth trends.
As veteran investors can attest, nothing lasts forever. There will come a time when this company just can't sustain this sort of growth.
That time is nowhere on the near or distant horizon, though. Precedence Research predicts the global e-commerce market is set to grow at an annualized pace of nearly 15% through 2034. And, in light of the U.S. Census Bureau's data suggesting that only about 16% of the country's retail spending is done online (with a similar proportion applying overseas), that bullish outlook isn't tough to believe.
Shopify may fare even better than that, however, given that sellers are increasingly seeing the value of controlling their customers' shopping experience rather than relying on companies like Amazon to serve as middlemen while also acting as competitors.
Analysts seem to think this is going to be the case. While Shopify's stock is down for the past few weeks, the analyst community still supports a consensus price target of $119.32 that's more than 25% above this ticker's present price.
Image source: Getty Images.
2. C3.ai
So far, Palantir Technologies has been the go-to name for most anyone looking for a decision-making software investment; you know it better as artificial intelligence (AI). And understandably so. Not only is Palantir one of the few profitable (albeit only marginally) names in the business, but with a market cap of just under $300 billion, it's also one of the biggest so-called "pure plays" within the AI software arena.
Size isn't everything though.
Enter C3.ai (AI 0.62%). Market cap? A mere $3 billion. Don't be fooled by its small size though, or its current lack of profits. This relatively tiny company still packs a strong potential punch for patient investors.
NYSE: AI
Key Data Points
With nothing more than a passing glance, the two AI companies in question look quite a bit alike. That is, they both turn mountains of digital data into actionable information.
They're not the same though. Whereas Palantir Technologies' business is largely aimed at government entities and similar institutions -- including the military -- looking for efficiency and operational speed without sacrificing precision, C3's solutions are mostly built to be business-oriented. Its list of customers includes pharmaceutical companies, oil and gas giant Shell, paper company Georgia-Pacific, and utility provider Consolidated Edison just to name a few.
This market is just as strong as Palantir's institutional market, and may be even stronger once businesses truly accept that artificial intelligence platforms offer real value, and then find the funding to make investments in such tools.
And that swell of demand does appear to be brewing. Precedence Research says the global business decision-making software industry is set to grow at an annualized pace of 16% between now and 2034, jibing with outlooks from Straits Research and others. This tremendous tailwind paired with C3 stock's near-50% setback since late last year makes for a great buying opportunity.
3. Alibaba
Last but not least, add China's e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba (BABA +1.29%) to your list of stocks that could be surprisingly easy wealth builders.
Not everyone will initially agree with this call. Anyone keeping tabs on this company of late likely knows that this stock's been a relatively poor performer since its initial pandemic-prompted surge, weighed down by Beijing's regulatory crackdown on many of China's bigger technology companies.
There are a couple of reasons, however, this ticker's been working its way out of its long-lived funk.
NYSE: BABA
Key Data Points
One of those reasons is last year's overdue reshaping of the company's operating structure as a means of improving efficiency and effectiveness, including a significant management shakeup and an unexpected pep talk from founder Jack Ma.
Although it took a while to sort out the restructuring, it appears to have been worth the effort. Alibaba's domestic e-commerce platforms Tmall and Taobao saw respectable 5% growth for the fiscal quarter ending in December, while new artificial intelligence tools pumped up its international e-commerce revenue by 32% year over year.
New U.S. import tariffs shouldn't slow this growth down much either, simply because most of this international business is done outside of the United States.
Perhaps the most notable growth driver in Alibaba's current portfolio of profit centers, however, is its foray into artificial intelligence services. The company's cloud intelligence arm reported 13% growth for the same quarter in question, and that was without the benefit of its Qwen 2.5 AI model unveiled in January.
You may recall the unveiling of a platform called DeepSeek-V3 just a few days before Alibaba set the artificial intelligence industry on its ear simply because Qwen reportedly does everything that familiar AI models like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini can do -- and some believe do it better -- and do so at a lower net cost. If Alibaba's latest version of Qwen really is superior by all important measures, it positions the company to be a leader of one of the planet's fastest-growing opportunities.
In this vein, market forecasting outfit SkyQuest predicts the worldwide artificial intelligence platform industry is poised to grow at an annualized pace of nearly 24% through 2032.
