Top 10 Best Stock Picks of the Decade

Despite extreme volatility and controversy around its CEO, Tesla delivered staggering returns for early believers as it grew from niche automaker to the world's most valuable car company. Its stock surged over 1,000% in the past five years, beating the second-best automotive stock in this list by 300%. Moreover, its market cap of $1.2 trillion is 50% higher than the average for the other top 5 automakers globally.

Apple became the first company to reach a $3 trillion market cap, driven by relentless services revenue growth and an unshakable ecosystem of over 2 billion active devices. Services revenue hit $85 billion in fiscal 2023, 50% higher than the average of the other top 5 tech stocks on this list. In terms of market cap growth over the decade, Apple's 800% gain outperforms #4 Microsoft's 650% by a significant margin.

Satya Nadella's cloud-first transformation made Azure a juggernaut, and early investments in OpenAI positioned Microsoft at the center of the generative AI gold rush. Azure's market share has grown to 24%, surpassing Amazon's AWS in growth rate for five consecutive quarters. Additionally, Azure's revenue growth of 27% in fiscal 2024 outpaced the average cloud competitor's 15% expansion.

AWS cloud dominance combined with advertising growth turned Amazon into a cash-generating machine, with the stock delivering over 500% returns across the decade—outperforming the average S&P 500 stock by more than 300 percentage points and growing its advertising revenue to over $46 billion in 2023. For context, this return is 50% higher than Broadcom's 400% over the same period, and Amazon's advertising business now accounts for over 7% of total US digital ad spend.

The pharmaceutical giant saw its stock surge over 800% as its GLP-1 drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound created an entirely new blockbuster weight-loss medication category, outperforming #10 Eli Lilly's earlier pipeline expectations and capturing over 90% of the GLP-1 market share in 2024. This return is double that of Amazon's 500%, and combined Mounjaro and Zepbound sales exceeded $12 billion in 2023, over 30% more than the entire diabetes drug category average.

Strategic acquisitions including VMware and exposure to custom AI chips made Broadcom one of the most consistently rewarding semiconductor investments of the era, returning over 400% in the decade and outperforming the average semiconductor ETF by 15% annually since 2020. This beats #5 Taiwan Semiconductor's 600% return on a per-year basis since 2020, as Broadcom's AI chip revenue grew to $4.2 billion in 2023—over 30% higher than the typical rival in the AI networking space.

As the sole manufacturer of the world's most advanced chips, TSMC became indispensable to every major tech company and rewarded shareholders with massive returns, delivering over 600% in the decade and beating the runner-up Taiwan index by 200 percentage points in the last five years. This return is twice that of Broadcom's 400% and represents a 200% premium over the average semiconductor stock, with TSMC's gross margin exceeding 53% in 2023—a 10 percentage point lead over chip industry averages.

The warehouse retailer's membership model and fanatical customer loyalty drove steady 15-20% annual returns, outperforming the S&P 500's average of 13% over the same period and proving that boring businesses can create extraordinary wealth. Its stock also surged 30% more than rival Walmart's during the same stretch, adding an extra 8 percentage points per year.

The Danish pharmaceutical company behind Ozempic and Wegovy rode the GLP-1 weight-loss drug wave to become Europe's most valuable company with returns exceeding 700%, outpacing #1 Costco's growth by over 500% in the same timeframe. This rapid rise delivered 28% average annual returns, nearly double the typical pharma sector benchmark of 15%.