One of the stocks I bought shortly after its IPO on May 15, 1997, was Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN). However, the stock was so volatile and my stomach so temperamental, that I sold it a few years later. Yeah, I made a thousand bucks or so, but boy did I miss out. If I had invested $10,000 right at the company’s IPO price and held onto my shares, I would have more than $12 million bucks today. Would.
I’ve learned over the years that true wealth is created by holding companies over the long term. All growth companies are going to be volatile on their journeys — that’s just part of the market’s MO. Growth stocks need time to, well, grow, and that doesn’t occur over a straight line. Companies will make errors and, hopefully, learn from them. But if you understand the industry and keep your eyes focused on the long term, it’s possible to turn that $10,000 into $12 million — if you don’t sell your shares.
So what would I purchase today if I had $5,000? Why, Amazon, of course! As my colleague Sean Williams writes, “it’s a fast-growing freight train that no company seems able to derail.” Amazon controls 44% of all online sales and boasts more than 150 million worldwide Prime members. But its major growth is coming from Amazon Web services, its infrastructure cloud segment. And the company shows no signs of slowing down anytime in the near future, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic has forced more people to shop from home — and they’re likely to keep doing it that way no matter what happens.
Read More: We Ask Successful Investors: If You Were Starting Over With $5,000, What Would