Key insights
- The article discusses three stocks the author intends to hold for the next 20 years, irrespective of market fluctuations. Berkshire Hathaway is favored for its diversified holdings, strong management legacy, and low beta, suggesting resilience during downturns. Intuitive Surgical is highlighted for its dominance in robotic surgery and strong growth potential. The author acknowledges potential market pullbacks due to inflation and global unrest but expresses long-term conviction in these companies.
This is a tall order, to choose three of the many stocks I own as ones I don't plan to sell within the next two decades, no matter what. After a bit of thinking and review, though, I have my three.
I'll discuss each one below. Note that my thinking incorporated the chance of there being a stock market crash or correction in the coming year or two. Such a pullback won't surprise me at all because the market has delivered a lot of double-digit gains in recent years, and there's also rising inflation and global unrest. Still, no one knows with any certainty what the market will do in the short term.
Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA 0.26%) (BRKB 0.22%) is almost a no-brainer for me. Having followed its longtime CEO Warren Buffett for many years and attended many of its annual meetings, it's the company in which I have the most faith for the long term. It's made up of lots of disparate businesses, from insurance to homebuilding to jewelry to transportation to energy -- and much more, including Dairy Queen International. It owns stock in lots of companies, too, such as 22% of American Express and 9% of Coca-Cola.
Whenever a market pullback occurs, as it inevitably will now and then, my Berkshire shares should hold up relatively well. After all, the stock has a beta of 0.62, meaning that when the overall stock market moves up or down, Berkshire will move up or down only 62% as much, on average.
Note that Buffett has stepped down from the CEO post as of 2026, but his successor Greg Abel is a longtime Berkshire manager, vowing to maintain the company's culture and long-term focus.
Intuitive Surgical (ISRG 0.80%) is, to me, a less predictable company than Berkshire Hathaway, but I still have a lot of faith in it. Why? Well, for starters, its management has been skilled enough to grow the business into the dominant force in robotic surgical systems. It recently sported a market value of $151 billion, and it has more than 12,000 of its costly systems installed around the world.
Over the years, it has introduced some newer surgical systems and gained approvals for additional procedures that can be performed with them. So its growth potential lies in further sales of systems, further introductions of new systems, and the addition of procedures that can be performed with its equipment. Better still, I love its business model. It actually earns much more from service contracts and the sale of accessories and supplies than from sales of its big systems. That's recurring, and fairly dependable, income.
Meanwhile, its stock looks reasonably valued or somewhat undervalued at recent levels, which hasn't always been the case. Its recent forward-looking price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio, for example, is 44, well below the five-year average of 55. (Note that both those numbers are on the steep side.)
In its first quarter, the number of procedures performed jumped 17% year over year, while revenue gained 23% over year-earlier levels. The stock has averaged annual gains of 19.5% over the past decade, but it's down about 25% over the past year (as of June 4), with some investors worrying about artificial intelligence's (AI's) impact on the company. Many other investors see a rosy future ahead.
Then there's market darling Nvidia (NVDA +1.49%). I've been a shareholder for a few years and have been well rewarded. I see further rewards ahead, despite any market blips, because the management seems to plan and execute so well -- well enough to keep the company growing at breakneck speed while adding new avenues for growth, such as its entrance into the central processing unit (CPU) market with a new chip.
Its data center business is key right now, as Nvidia supplies chips for myriad data centers facilitating AI processing. It's positioned for continued success there, as huge tech companies are spending hundreds of billions on data center capital expenditures. Indeed, in Nvidia's Q1, it posted revenue of $81.6 billion, up 85% from the year-ago quarter, and record data center revenue of $75.2 billion, up 92% year over year.
With this torrid growth rate -- the stock has averaged annual gains of 69% over the past decade -- you might expect the stock to be overvalued, but it doesn't seem to be. Its forward P/E ratio was recently just 26, well below the five-year average of 36.
Take a closer look at any of these stocks that interest you.