Top Stocks to Buy and Hold in 2025

There are thousands of publicly traded companies you can invest in, not to mention the many exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and mutual funds you can buy. So, it's not surprising that many investors don't know where to begin. Even with a market that reached record highs in late 2025, plenty of stocks remain extremely attractive for long-term investors to consider buying.

PayPal (PYPL +1.23%) is an absolute cash machine that has been beaten down by more than 75% from its highs. If you aren't familiar with the recent history, PayPal completely overhauled its management team in late 2023. Every member of its C-suite is new to the business, and it is an impressive group.

The new leaders are already making some big moves, including rolling out an industry-leading cash-back debit card product and launching an advertising platform. Since the new leadership took over, efficiency has improved dramatically, and earnings per share (EPS) is significantly higher.

This could be just a starting point. Management has recently presented investors with a growth roadmap and believes it can achieve sustainable 20% annual earnings growth in the not-too-distant future.

Currently, the company has 438 million active users across PayPal and Venmo, and it processes about $1.8 trillion in annualized payment volume. The company produces more than $6 billion in free cash flow annually and has been using it to aggressively buy back its own stock, a sign that management thinks it's cheap.

It's not hard to see why PayPal's management is choosing to use its capital this way. As of October 2025, the stock traded at a historically low price-to-sales ratio of 2.2 times and for less than 14 times forward earnings.

2. Airbnb

3. MercadoLibre

One of my favorite long-term stock investments in the market, MercadoLibre (MELI +1.90%), is often referred to as the Amazon of Latin America, and for good reason. The company operates an e-commerce marketplace with a dominant presence in some of the region's most populous nations, including Brazil and Argentina.

However, there's a lot more to MercadoLibre. It operates a fast-growing payments platform called Mercado Pago, a logistics service known as Mercado Envios, a business lending platform, and more.

The marketplace saw $15.3 billion in merchandise volume in the second quarter of 2025, representing a 21% increase over the same quarter in 2024. Mercado Pago processes almost $260 billion in annualized payment volume, with three-quarters of this volume coming from outside the company's e-commerce platform.

Both main parts of the business are growing rapidly. And don't overlook Mercado Crédito, the company's young but fast-growing (and highly profitable) lending business. Mercado Crédito has $9.3 billion in outstanding loan balances.

MercadoLibre isn't just the Amazon of Latin America -- it's the Amazon, PayPal, Block (XYZ +1.61%) (owner of Square and Cash App), Shopify, and more, all rolled into one. And it's in a much earlier stage of growth. As the e-commerce and fintech landscapes in Latin America evolve over the coming years, MercadoLibre could be a major long-term beneficiary.

It seems like every week, there's another high-profile security breach. The need for cybersecurity solutions certainly isn't getting any smaller. And that's especially true when it comes to cloud-based security.

CrowdStrike (CRWD +0.17%) is leading the charge to keep data secure in the cloud. This is a best-in-breed cybersecurity company with a highly effective platform.

CrowdStrike collects security data from each of its many users, analyzes it, and uses it to automate security throughout its entire network. This makes the platform highly effective at detecting the newest threats.

And the more users adopt CrowdStrike's solutions (known as its Falcon platform), the more effective it becomes. The use of crowdsourced threat data, combined with its leading market share, gives it a competitive advantage over peers.

With almost $4.7 billion in annual recurring revenue and an 80% subscription gross margin, CrowdStrike's growth has been impressive, but this could be just the beginning. The company sees its current addressable market at $116 billion in potential revenue and expects that the opportunity could more than double to $250 billion by 2029.

5. Intuitive Surgical

Robot-assisted surgery beats shaky human hands. That general thesis hasn't changed much from when I first noticed Intuitive Surgical (ISRG +0.93%) stock in 2005. The da Vinci Surgical System is the clear market leader, and its "razor and blades" model helps Intuitive generate a recurring stream of revenue.

In the second quarter of 2025, Intuitive Surgical reported year-over-year revenue growth of 21%, fueled by 17% growth in performed da Vinci procedures.

Intuitive Surgical is dominant in its space, with a global market share of about 80%. It has lots of room to grow as the adoption of its surgical systems and the number of supported procedures increase over time. This is particularly true in many international markets, where the implementation of robot-assisted surgery could be a long-tailed growth catalyst for this excellent business for decades to come.

6. Shopify

Shopify (SHOP -1.26%) operates a platform designed to enable businesses of all sizes to sell their products online, with a particular focus on empowering smaller businesses and growing with them by establishing long-term relationships.

Shopify offers a subscription plan starting at $39 per month for businesses (even less for one-person merchants). It also provides many adjacent services that help businesses operate smoothly, such as payment processing solutions and logistics.

Shopify's one-stop shop approach to enabling e-commerce has turned it into a powerhouse. It now has more e-commerce sales flowing through its ecosystem than any company besides Amazon, and Shopify could be just getting started.

The platform has generated more than $10 billion in revenue over the past four quarters. However, this is just a fraction of its estimated $153 billion (and growing) market opportunity as more retailers shift their focus to online sales.

E-commerce is still in the relatively early stages, making up slightly more than 16% of retail sales in the United States. Shopify's platform has the No. 2 share of e-commerce by total payment volume (second only to Amazon), giving it a powerful ecosystem with network effect advantages over competitors.

8. Berkshire Hathaway

Amazon (AMZN +2.56%) doesn't really need much of an elevator pitch for most people. The company holds a dominant lead in the U.S. e-commerce market. And its Amazon Web Services cloud platform is also a market leader, with a significant lead over the other two large players in the space, Microsoft and Alphabet.

However, more growth potential exists than you might think. We're still a long way from maximizing e-commerce adoption, as it accounts for only a little more than 16% of all U.S. retail sales.

The cloud industry is relatively young and expected to roughly quadruple in size to a $2.3 trillion market by 2032. Amazon also has a ton of potential in other areas, including healthcare, grocery stores, neighborhood markets, and more.

10. Alphabet

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