3 Stocks That Have Made Long-Term Investors Rich (and Could Do It Again)
The post 3 Stocks That Have Made Long-Term Investors Rich (and Could Do It Again) appeared first on 24/7 Wall St..
June is a natural moment for mid-year reflection. Short-term traders are squaring quarterly books, but long-term investors should be doing something different: Stepping back to ask which businesses have already produced multi-decade compounding, and whether the moats that drove those returns are still intact today. Past performance does not guarantee future returns. Durable competitive advantages, however, tend to persist, and the three names below have spent decades widening theirs.
Here are three generational compounders that have made patient shareholders rich, and that still look positioned to do it again.
Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL)
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is the textbook example of a moat that keeps widening. The stock trades at $295 as of June 17, with a market cap of roughly $4.33 trillion. Over the trailing 10 years, shares are up more than 1,163% on an adjusted basis, and the stock is up 51% over the past year. Apple is also Warren Buffett’s largest equity position, sitting at about 22% of the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio per the Q1 2026 13F.
The bull case is the installed base and the recurring revenue that sits on top of it. In Q2 FY26, Apple reported EPS of $2.01 against a $1.94 estimate, on revenue of $111.18 billion, up 17% year over year. iPhone revenue jumped to $56.99 billion, Services hit $30.98 billion, and the active device base now exceeds 2.5 billion. Management lifted the dividend 4% to $0.27 quarterly and authorized a fresh $100 billion buyback. Analyst consensus is 63% bullish, with an average target of $312.72.
The caveat: valuation is full at 35x trailing earnings, and Apple remains exposed to global trade frictions and supply-chain concentration. A long-term holder is paying a premium for durability, and that premium is real.
Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO)
Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) is the dividend-compounder benchmark. The shares trade around $79, up 15.33% year to date and 81% over the past decade on an adjusted basis. Coca-Cola has been a core Berkshire holding since the late 1980s, and the company just extended its dividend streak to 63-plus consecutive years of annual increases, putting it firmly in Dividend King territory.
The recent fundamentals back up the moat story. In Q1 2026, Coca-Cola posted EPS of $0.86 against an $0.81 estimate on revenue of $12.47 billion, up 12% year over year. Organic revenue grew 10%, unit case volume rose 3%, and Coca-Cola Zero Sugar volume climbed 13% across every geography. Operating margin expanded to 35% from 33%, and free cash flow surged to $1.76 billion. Management raised 2026 guidance to comparable EPS growth of 8% to 9% and free cash flow near $12.2 billion. The current quarterly dividend sits at $0.53, up from $0.51 in 2025.
The caveat: a $960 million BODYARMOR sports drink trademark impairment last quarter, ongoing IRS tax litigation and a roughly 4% revenue headwind from divestitures including the pending Coca-Cola Beverages Africa sale. None of those threaten the franchise; they do compress near-term reported growth.
Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT)
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is the third leg of this stool, and arguably the most interesting today because it has actually pulled back. Shares trade around $381, down more than 19% year to date and more than 20% over the past year, even though the 10-year return remains 666%. Microsoft has compounded enormously since the early 1990s on a split-adjusted basis, and the AI/cloud cycle reads like the next chapter rather than the end of one.
The numbers are doing the talking. In Q3 FY26, Microsoft reported EPS of $4.27 against a $4.07 estimate on revenue of $82.89 billion, up 18% year over year. Intelligent Cloud revenue grew 30% to $34.68 billion, Azure expanded 40%, and the AI business crossed a $37 billion annualized run rate, up 123% year over year. Commercial remaining performance obligations, essentially contracted backlog, hit $627 billion. CEO Satya Nadella framed it bluntly: “Our AI business surpassed an annual revenue run rate of $37 billion, up 123% year-over-year.” Analyst consensus is 95% bullish with a target of $561.39.
The caveat: capital intensity. CapEx ran $30.88 billion in the quarter, up 84% year over year, and the market is openly debating whether AI infrastructure spending will earn an adequate return. That debate is the entire reason the stock is on sale.
What to watch from here
The thread connecting Apple, Coca-Cola and Microsoft is a competitive position that survives recessions, technology shifts, and management changes. The next decade will test each moat in different ways: Apple against trade and regulatory pressure, Coca-Cola against shifting consumer preferences, Microsoft against the return-on-AI-investment question. For long-term investors thinking past June, those are the right questions to be asking.
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The post 3 Stocks That Have Made Long-Term Investors Rich (and Could Do It Again) appeared first on 24/7 Wall St..
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