10 Stocks Your Future Self Will Thank You For

The stock market has taken a beating of late, but that’ll change. And while the volatility of the global economy -- headlined by inflation and a stubborn, deadly pandemic -- will pose more trouble to come, this can be an ideal time to identify some beaten-down prospects to buy and hold.

Here’s a list of 10 stocks from some long-term performers and promising newcomers that you can buy now with reasonable confidence that someday in the future, and perhaps continuing well into the future, you can look back and say, “That was smart. Thank you, past self.”

5 Stocks Under $49
Presented by Motley Fool Stock Advisor
We hear it over and over from investors, “I wish I had bought Amazon or Netflix when they were first recommended by The Motley Fool. I’d be sitting on a gold mine!" It's true, but we think these 5 other stocks are screaming buys. And you can buy them now for less than $49 a share! Click here to learn how you can grab a copy of “5 Growth Stocks Under $49” for FREE for a limited time only.

Realty Income (NYSE: O) is a widely held, well-respected company for good reason. This real estate investment trust (REIT) has produced compound average annual growth of 15.5% since it went public in 1994, and it has paid a monthly dividend without fail as well. The company provides retail space to more than 650 different clients at about 11,000 properties in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Spain. It’s also doubling down on retail, having purchased a large competitor, Vereit, and spinning off its office properties into a REIT of its own called Orion Office REIT.

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Planet 13 Holdings (OTC: PLNH.F) is a pot stock that could be a perfect play for long-term growth. Planet 13 is a front-runner in establishing a chain of stores selling legal marijuana in the growing number of states where that’s permitted. It already has a well-established flagship superstore in Las Vegas and another one in Santa Ana, California. It's now in the process of buying Next Green Wave Holdings, a Canadian grower with significant operations in the Golden State. Planet 13 is a small company now but is setting itself up for much bigger things as recreational marijuana gains traction around the country.

NewLake Capital Partners (OTC: NLCP) is another pot stock, but it’s no retailer. NewLake is a triple net lease REIT that buys growing and selling operations alike and leases them back to some of the largest operators in the state-licensed cannabis business. NewLake was founded in 2019, went public last year, and already owns 27 cultivation facilities and dispensaries. Providing capital to an industry that’s growing like, well, a weed in a business traditional lenders avoid as long as marijuana is illegal on the federal level has already made larger rival Innovative Industrial Properties a big success, and there’s no doubt there’s room for more.

Nextdoor Holdings (NYSE: KIND) owns a hyperlocal app that millions of people across the country use to tell one another about missing cats, stray dogs, and everybody else's business. It’s also poised to possibly become a very big business itself, monetized by businesses big and small that want to get in front of all those neighbors. The company joined the New York Stock Exchange late last year, and the market gave it an ante of $674 million in that initial offering. Nextdoor isn’t making money yet, but under the leadership of Sarah Friar, a former key executive for Square (now Block), there’s good reason to believe it will for a long time to come.

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MercadoLibre (NASDAQ: MELI) is an Argentine e-commerce giant that can be thought of as sort of Latin America’s answer to Amazon, serving hundreds of millions of consumers in 18 countries, with hundreds of millions more who aren’t users yet. That alone shows room to grow, especially as that part of the world adds internet users as a breakneck pace. MercadoLibre is also investing heavily in fintech, including payments tools, and since 2019 has opened distribution centers in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, and Colombia.

5 Stocks Under $49
Presented by Motley Fool Stock Advisor
We hear it over and over from investors, “I wish I had bought Amazon or Netflix when they were first recommended by The Motley Fool. I’d be sitting on a gold mine!" It's true, but we think these 5 other stocks are screaming buys. And you can buy them now for less than $49 a share! Click here to learn how you can grab a copy of “5 Growth Stocks Under $49” for FREE for a limited time only.

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) is its own answer. Despite not paying a dividend, Amazon stock has generated returns of more than 30% a year for a decade now, meaning if you had plunked $10,000 down on it then and hung on, you’d have about $155,390 now. Now with a market cap of about $1.5 trillion, competition and scale make it hard to assume that an investment today will see that same kind of trajectory. But there’s plenty of reason to believe the diversifying e-commerce giant will continue to reward shareholders for years to come. Maybe it’ll even fork over a dividend someday.

ALSO READ: 3 Top E-Commerce Stocks to Buy Right Now

Stag Industrial (NYSE: STAG) is a REIT that’s been in business for only just over a decade, but during that time it has produced enough in dividends and share price growth to turn a $10,000 investment into nearly $60,000. That’s not the kind of 10x numbers you see from Amazon and a few others, but that’s still pretty solid. And Stag is in a real estate investing sector that’s very hot now and should stay that way for the foreseeable future. The company buys and operates single-tenant industrial properties with a tenant list that includes blue chip leaders in e-commerce and logistics. All supply chain stuff with nowhere to go but up, especially if you buy and hold. And Stag pays dividends monthly instead of quarterly.

Let’s finish this list of 10 with three Dividend Kings, that group of about 30 stocks that have raised dividends every year for at least 50 years. And let’s begin with Emerson Electric (NYSE: EMR), a provider of software and engineering solutions for industrial, commercial, and residential markets around the world. Emerson began making electric motors in St. Louis in 1890, and it’s still based there, building on a record of 65 years of annual dividend growth while it thrives in behind-the-scenes niches that leave it in good stead for more to come.

Lowe’s (NYSE: LOW) has raised its dividend a wee bit every year for the past 59 years as it built itself into a home-improvement giant, and it has seen business really thrive as the pandemic turned millions of homeowners into do-it-yourselfers. Lowe’s stock jumped 61% in 2021, compared with “only” 27% for the S&P 500, and its habit of paying dividends and buying back its own shares should help buoy more profits for itself and shareholders for years to come.

Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) has been paying dividends to shareholders for 132 years and has raised them every year for the past 65. The consumer brands giant relies on its stable of household names like Bounty, Head & Shoulders, Pampers, Oral-B, and many more to keep the revenue coming in, the stock price healthy, and the dividends on the rise. The company hasn’t been resting on its laurels, though, and has actually cut its product brand lines from about 170 to only 65, picking up global market share along the way.

5 Stocks Under $49
Presented by Motley Fool Stock Advisor
We hear it over and over from investors, “I wish I had bought Amazon or Netflix when they were first recommended by The Motley Fool. I’d be sitting on a gold mine!" It's true, but we think these 5 other stocks are screaming buys. And you can buy them now for less than $49 a share! Click here to learn how you can grab a copy of “5 Growth Stocks Under $49” for FREE for a limited time only.

Investing in companies with reasons and room to grow has been proven time and again as a way to grow real wealth over time. Each of the 10 companies highlighted here has its own moat around its market and is building momentum that can reward a timely investment now with handsome total returns you’ll thank yourself for later -- perhaps even much later.

John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Marc Rapport owns Amazon, Innovative Industrial Properties, and Planet 13 Holdings Inc. The Motley Fool owns and recommends Amazon, Block, Innovative Industrial Properties, MercadoLibre, Nextdoor Holdings, Inc., Planet 13 Holdings Inc., and Stag Industrial. The Motley Fool recommends Lowes. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.