If you invested $5,000 in Micron, Seagate, or Western Digital (WDC 2.90%) at this time last year, you would have seen your investment grow by more than 300% as of today.
In the case of Western Digital, it would have grown about 438%, so that $5,000 would have increased to about $28,000 in just one year.
Of course, markets are different than they were a year ago and valuations have increased, so it's hard to know which one will break out this year.
Image source: Getty Images.
To double your money in one year, you would need stocks to return about 75% with no additional contributions. To double your money in two years, you would need returns of about 40% per year.
That is certainly doable, but here is a more realistic and achievable plan to double your money: Contribute $50 per month to that $5,000 investment over the next two years and invest in growth stocks that could generate roughly 25% annual returns. Two strong candidates to achieve that are Western Digital and Nvidia (NVDA 1.55%).
Can Western Digital keep growing?
Western Digital had an epic year, as detailed, but can it possibly keep churning out that type of return? Maybe, but it is pretty doubtful. However, it is in good shape to generate excellent returns that could help you double your money in two years.
NASDAQ: WDC
Key Data Points
Western Digital is one of two major players in the business of making hard drive disks to store the massive amounts of data at artificial intelligence (AI) data centers. Western Digital and Seagate have a duopoly in this business, which is only growing more exponentially as more companies invest in AI technology and more data centers are built to process it.
I think both companies will continue to see explosive growth, but Western Digital looks like the better investment of the two due to its lower valuation. Even after its 438% run, Western Digital stock is only trading at 27 times earnings, which is below the S&P 500 average. Longer term, it has a five-year PEG (price/earnings-growth) ratio of 0.93, which suggests it's undervalued relative to its earnings expectations.
I would not anticipate 400% returns, but I think it could see strong market-beating returns.
Nvidia is flashing a buy signal
Nvidia doesn't need an introduction, as it's the most valuable company in the world, and its graphics processing units (GPU) are central to the function of AI centers, as they help high-performance computers process information faster. Not only that, it owns the architecture, the Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA), and CUDA, which is the dominant architecture, can only run on Nvidia chips.
NASDAQ: NVDA
Key Data Points
That has helped it completely own this market, with more than 90% market share in the data center GPU space.
Nvidia stock has struggled a bit this year, due to its incredible run over the past three years and the high valuation it accrued. But the correction has put Nvidia in the buy zone with a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of just 23 and a price-to-earnings-to-growth (PEG) ratio of 0.68.
Nvidia, like Western Digital, is a prime candidate to deliver returns the next two years to help you double a $5,000 investment.
