The Motley Fool’s 2025 Long-Term Investing Survey finds younger investors are gravitating toward higher-risk, alternative investments like crypto and real estate, while older generations favor time-tested investing strategies like index funds and dividend stocks.
Despite short-term concerns about market volatility, stubborn inflation, and rising tariff and trade tensions, most investors from Gen Z to baby boomers are taking a long-term, buy-and-hold investing approach – though the specific investments they choose vary pretty significantly by generation.
Across all ages, stocks remain the leading long-term investment of choice, but opinions on sectors, risk, and return expectations vary widely.
What do individual investors believe is the best long-term investment?
Investing in stocks is the most popular long-term investment strategy for all age groups, although enthusiasm for them varies. Just 23% of baby boomers selected stocks as their top long-term investment compared to 35% of both millennials and Gen X. But for boomers, that’s somewhat offset by a higher percentage of that generation selecting index funds as their preferred long-term investment than any other.
There are a few other notable splits among generations’ choice for the best option for a 10-plus-year investment:
- Baby boomers are more likely than any other generation to say annuities (12%), gold and precious metals (12%), and bonds (12%) are the best long-term investments.
- Gen Z and millennials are more likely to favor cryptocurrency (16% and 13%, respectively) and real estate (22% and 18%).
- Gen Z is slightly more bullish on private equity and alternative investments (4%), although interest is low across all age groups.