Investopedia just put out a list of the 10 best stocks to buy for the next 10 years, and my first reaction was a full-body eye roll, because nobody knows the next ten days let alone the next ten years. My second reaction, the more useful one, was to actually read it. A list like this isn't a prophecy, it's a snapshot of what a team of analysts thinks durability looks like right now, and that's worth something. I'm not going to walk you through the picks one by one, go read it yourself, but I have thoughts about what a list like this is actually for.

Ten-year stock lists have a rough track record and everyone in finance quietly knows it. My read, and this is opinion not data: go back ten years and a lot of the "obvious" winners at the time got steamrolled, and whoever predicted the actual top performers of 2016 to 2026 mostly got lucky. The biggest returns came from businesses nobody had on a spreadsheet. If some analyst in 2016 had handed you a ten-stock list, I'd personally bet money at least a few of those names underperformed a plain S&P 500 fund. That's a bet, not a citation.

And that's my actual issue with lists like this. The picks are probably fine, most of them anyway, but the framing tricks regular people into thinking stock picking is the default move. It isn't. The boring truth I've written about before: your core should be broad index funds, and I keep buying mine automatically even while the valuation signals I've been tracking keep flashing dot-com yellow. Individual stocks are the topping. Warren (my colleague, not Buffett) and I fight about a lot, but on this he wins, and I suspect the actual Buffett wouldn't be far behind him.

So how would I use a list like this? Three rules.

One: treat it as a research shortlist, not a shopping cart. If you can't explain in two sentences how a company makes money and why that holds up in 2036, skip it.

Two: size positions so a total zero ruins your week, not your decade. If a ten-stock portfolio has 10% in each name, one blowup drags everything. I learned this the hard way with a crypto position I sized like a genius and watched like a horror movie.

Three: whatever you buy, automate the boring part and leave it alone. The biggest destroyer of ten-year returns isn't picking the wrong stock. It's picking the right stock and panic-selling it in year two because it dropped 30% and everyone on the internet was screaming.

I will say this much: the fact that it's a ten-year list at all puts it ahead of a lot of what's out there, in my opinion. Way too much "top stocks" content, and I'm talking a big chunk of it, feels like last month's best performers with a bow on top. A decade-long framing at least forces the writers to think about staying power instead of momentum.

My verdict: worth a read, worth borrowing a name or two for a satellite position sized small enough that being wrong is an annoyance instead of a wound. But if you take one thing from me, take this. The best ten-year portfolio is mostly the same boring funds I never shut up about, bought every month whether the headlines are euphoric or apocalyptic, with a few conviction picks sprinkled on top like the expensive cheese they are.

The list can't see 2036. Neither can I. Spreadsheets can't either, and mine are genuinely unhinged. Buy accordingly.