During times of market volatility, it’s always good for long-term investors to take a breath and zoom out. That doesn’t mean getting out of the markets as fast as possible. Instead, it means looking back at the past performance of the stocks they own or those on their watchlist(s).
While it’s true that you want to look for stock price growth, you also want to invest in companies that have a history of increasing revenue and earnings. This growth helps to ensure that a company can sustain a higher stock price over time.
This simple action can remind you that, over time, buying and holding quality stocks tends to pay off. It’s also a good reminder that these consistent outperformers are often large-cap stocks that have a proven track record of delivering for investors no matter what the economy is doing.
Here are three growth stocks that have given investors strong performance for the last 10 years and are likely to be among the market leaders in the next 10 years.
This Dividend King Continues to Deliver for Investors
AbbVie Inc. (NYSE: ABBV) is a good example of how dividend stocks and growth can co-exist. The biopharmaceutical company is one of the best medical stocks, delivering a total return of 435.38% in the last 10 years. That’s a significant outperformance compared to the 14.6% historical average yearly return of the S&P 500. However, it’s particularly notable that ABBV stock has been up 34.6% in the last 12 months, even though 2023 revenue came in about 6% lower on a year-over-year (YoY) basis.
That dip was due, in part, to pressure from biosimilar competition for its flagship drug Humira. However, in the first two quarters of 2024, the company is posting YoY beats in revenue as new drugs such as Skyrizi and Rinvoq are picking up some of the slack. And by 2027, those two drugs are expected to deliver $27 billion in revenue.
ABBV stock also has an attractive dividend that has been increasing for 52 consecutive years and currently has a 3.14% yield.
Meta Continues to Have the Right Formula for Growth
With all the talk of the company’s commitment to the metaverse, Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ: META) is showing investors that it hasn’t forgotten how its bread is buttered. The parent company of Facebook and Instagram continues to dominate the social media and online advertising space. In fact, digital advertising continues to drive revenue growth.
This revenue growth is providing Meta with the cash that it needs to fund its investments in artificial intelligence (AI), including the metaverse. This may be a drag on earnings in the short term, but this is about stocks to own for the long term. META stock has delivered a total return of 587% in the last 10 years, and there’s no reason to believe it can’t continue to outperform.
As further proof, Meta has shown an ability to get its balance sheet in order and even issued a dividend for the first time in its history. While this isn’t a reason to own a growth stock like META, it does give investors another reason to hold onto the stock during times of volatility.
This Innovative Company Remains on the Leading Edge
Intutitive Surgical Inc. (NASDAQ: ISRG) has delivered a total return of over 800% over the last 10 years. That's almost 5x the performance of the S&P 500 in that time. However, that shouldn’t deter investors from getting involved with this next-generation medical device company. In fact, the growth is likely to accelerate in the next 10 years.
The company’s da Vinci robotic surgical systems are the standard in minimally invasive care. The company has a huge addressable market, as evidenced by the more than 2.2 million procedures performed by the da Vinci system in 2023.
While it’s easy to focus on the millions of dollars the company receives from selling one of these systems, this is a recurring revenue story. In its most recent earnings report, the company reported that 83% of its revenue came from recurring revenue.
Revenue was up 14% year over year in 2023, and the company is on pace for even stronger growth through the first two quarters of 2024.
