As 2025 continues to wind down, the market is on track for another strong performance. Growth stocks once again led the way, which has been the case for much of the past decade. Meanwhile, there is no reason to think that this trend will not continue.
Let's look at two growth stocks to buy and hold for the next five years.
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1. Nvidia
When it comes to artificial intelligence (AI), Nvidia (NVDA 1.47%) remains one of the best stocks to continue to hold. Its graphics processing units (GPUs) have become the backbone of AI infrastructure, given their parallel processing power, but it is the ecosystem it's built around these chips that will help drive its growth in the coming years.
The company's moat starts with its CUDA software platform, which it created nearly two decades ago to allow developers to easily program its chips. The company smartly gave it away for free and pushed it into universities and research labs that were doing early work on AI. Today, most foundational AI code is written on CUDA, and a generation of developers has been trained on its platform.
NASDAQ: NVDA
Key Data Points
Meanwhile, the company's recent acquisition of SchedMD should only increase its software moat, as it provides it with an AI orchestration layer called Slurm that helps coordinate which GPUs perform which tasks and when. While Slurm is open-source, by having control of this layer, Nvidia will be able to more tightly integrate it with its ecosystem to optimize the performance of its chips.
The company also has a networking moat with its NVLink interconnect system, which lets its GPUs pool memory and transfer data directly between each other, letting its chip clusters essentially act as one powerful unit. It also made a sneaky good investment in Intel, where the two companies are also partnering to bring Intel's central processing units (CPUs) into its NVLink framework, which could help freeze out rival Advanced Micro Devices, which is the leader in data center CPUs and the No. 2 GPU player.
As AI infrastructure spending continues to ramp up, Nvidia's moat continues to put it in a position to be the biggest winner.
2. Dutch Bros
AI and tech are not the only areas to find intriguing growth stocks. The consumer space is another great place to look, and on that end, Dutch Bros (BROS 4.88%) is one of the best growth stories over the next few years.
The Oregon-based coffee shop operator has been hitting on all cylinders, nicely growing same-store sales while expanding into new markets. Last quarter, in a difficult consumer environment, the company posted a 5.7% jump in comparable-restaurant sales, as transactions grew 4.7%. Company-owned shops performed even better, with same-store sales up 7.4%. The growth is being powered by menu innovation, brand marketing, and mobile order-ahead.
NYSE: BROS
Key Data Points
Meanwhile, the company has a big opportunity to further drive growth through the introduction of hot food items. The company has been getting less than 2% of its sales from food, compared to around 20% for rival Starbucks. This has hurt its morning daypart sales, as many customers don't want to make two stops.
However, Dutch Bros will roll out hot food items to three-quarters of its locations that can support the offerings after a successful test, with shops that piloted the food items seeing a 4% sales lift. And once these items are more widely available and the company puts more marketing behind them, it wouldn't be surprising if the impact becomes even bigger.
Meanwhile, Dutch Bros is still in the early innings of expansion, with under 1,100 stores. It plans to have more than 2,000 locations by 2029, and sees the opportunity to eventually support around 7,000 stores in the U.S. Its shops are small and cheap to build out, so it also gets a quick payback on its investment.
Between store expansion and same-store sales growth, Dutch Bros is a stock to own for the next five years.
