The tech sector has rewarded many of its most patient investors over the past few decades. Winners like Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon generated multibagger returns for investors who consistently tuned out the near-term noise, rode out the volatile market swings, and focused on their long-term goals.
So today, let's examine three other resilient blue chip tech stocks that could still deliver impressive gains for patient investors: the chipmaking giant Nvidia (NVDA 2.92%), the social media leader Meta Platforms (META -0.54%), and the cybersecurity bellwether Palo Alto Networks (PANW 1.22%). I believe all three of these tech titans could deliver market-beating gains for investors who simply buy, hold, and forget about their stocks for the next decade.
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1. Nvidia
Nvidia is the world's top producer of discrete GPUs for PCs, workstations, and servers. It was once primarily known for its gaming GPUs, but it now generates most of its revenue from its data center GPUs, which process AI tasks more efficiently than stand-alone CPUs. That's why most of the world's top AI companies -- including OpenAI and Microsoft -- use Nvidia's GPUs.
Nvidia controls about 98% of the data center GPU market, according to Wells Fargo, and its total data center revenue surged 76% year over year in its latest quarter and accounted for 89% of its top line. As the maker of the best picks and shovels for the AI gold rush, Nvidia should continue to expand as more companies beef up their AI capabilities.
Nvidia faces some competition from AMD's cheaper data center GPUs and custom AI accelerators across the cloud and data center markets, while China's export curbs might throttle its near-term sales. However, it should remain the market leader in AI chips for the foreseeable future.
From fiscal 2025 (ended this January) to fiscal 2028, analysts expect Nvidia's revenue and earnings per share (EPS) to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30% and 29%, respectively.
But even after rallying nearly 1,500% over the past five years, Nvidia's stock still looks reasonably valued at 33 times forward earnings. Therefore, I believe it could soar a lot higher over the next decade -- even if it goes through some volatile swings with the broader AI market.
2. Meta Platforms
Meta Platforms -- which owns Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp -- is the world's largest social media company with 3.43 billion daily active people across all of its apps. Since it already serves nearly two-thirds of the world's adult population, advertisers will continue to flock to its platforms.
By driving its users to share their personal data through their likes, shared content, and browsing data, Meta can craft more effective targeted ads than most of its rivals.
In 2022, Meta's growth was throttled by Apple's privacy changes on iOS and tough competition from ByteDance's TikTok. The ongoing expansion of its money-losing Reality Labs segment, which handles its AR and VR products, exacerbated that pressure.
But in 2023 and 2024, Meta's growth accelerated again. It used AI tools to gather more first-party data and curb its dependence on third-party data, and it expanded its Reels short video platform to draw more creators and viewers away from TikTok. It also attracted more spending from Chinese e-commerce and gaming companies targeting overseas customers.
From 2024 to 2027, analysts expect Meta's revenue and EPS to grow at a CAGR of 13% and 11%, respectively. Its business might be maturing, but its stock still looks reasonably valued at 25 times forward earnings. Back in 2011, Steve Jobs praised Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook for "dominating" the social media market. That's still true 14 years later -- and Meta should continue to flourish over the next decade as its core brands remain synonymous with the social media market.
3. Palo Alto Networks
Cybersecurity companies are reliable long-term investments for two simple reasons. First, cyber attacks are becoming more frequent, malicious, and difficult to counter. Second, most companies won't shut down their digital defenses just to save a few dollars.
Palo Alto Networks, which serves more than 80,000 enterprise customers, is one of the easiest ways to profit from the long-term growth of the cybersecurity market. It hosts three main ecosystems: Strata for its on-premise network security services, Prisma for its cloud-based security services, and Cortex for its AI-powered threat detection tools. Prisma and Cortex, which it collectively calls its "next-gen security" services, have driven most of its recent growth.
It's also been bundling more services into its core platforms with a "platformization" strategy, which broadens its appeal, locks in more customers, and widens its moat against smaller cybersecurity companies that provide niche services.
From fiscal 2024 (ended last July) to fiscal 2027, analysts expect Palo Alto's revenue to grow at a CAGR of 14%. Its EPS is expected to decline in fiscal 2025 (as it laps a one-time tax benefit), but continue growing at a CAGR of 21% over the following two years. The stock isn't cheap at 51 times its forward adjusted earnings, but it should be a great growth stock to hold over the next decade.
