Many investors may know the average Social Security benefit for retirees currently stands at $1,976 per month. But that's an average with a wide range of inputs as well as potential outputs. The more money you earned during your working years, the greater your eventual payment becomes. The age at which you choose to initiate your benefits can also impact the size of your check.

With that as the backdrop, what's the average 75-year-old retiree collecting from Social Security these days? The agency reports it's $2,749 per month. For the sake of comparison, the typical 70-year-old is currently collecting $2,842 per month (the highest average age-based figure, by the way), while the average 80-year-old's monthly payment stands at $2,412.

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Curiously, the 70-to-80-year-old crowd (born post-World War II, between 1945 and 1955) are seeing measurably bigger Social Security payments than the over-80 crowd as well as the under-70 crowd. The swell in the size of this cohort's Social Security payments suggests these so-called baby boomers enjoyed uniquely strong employment opportunities and subsequently strong incomes for almost all of their adult lives.

Not bad, but still not enough

So you're doing better than average, or you know you will be doing better when the time comes based on the Social Security Administration's projection of your future benefits? Don't celebrate too much, or too soon. This average payment still isn't covering the entirety of retirees' typical living costs.

Smaller payments don't necessarily spell doom, either. Plenty of people are generating more investment income from their retirement savings during their golden years even if they're collecting subpar Social Security payments.

And that's how it should be. The program was never meant provide all of your retirement income no matter how much or how little you put into it.

The bigger takeaway here is that you'll want to save as much as you possibly can for retirement on your own, and make the most of that savings while you can. This, of course, means achieving long-term gains that measurably and meaningfully outpace inflation.

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Got a little money and a lot of time? Say, 10 years or more? That's perfect. Time is an investor's best friend, and of course, the more capital you've got to deploy, the bigger your potential net return gets. And if you've got at least a decade to work with, you've got time to take a shot on some relatively volatile but potentially revolutionary investment prospects.

With that as the backdrop, here's a rundown of three monster stocks to buy and hold for 10 years, if not longer. Notice that each of them isn't just in a whole new kind of business. They're largely driving the formation of their respective industries.

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Uber Technologies

A decade ago, the idea of connecting a stranger who needed a ride with another stranger willing to give them one (using the driver's own vehicle, no less) didn't just seem unmarketable. It seemed outrageous. As it turns out, however, the ride-hailing business was a brilliant idea driven by a major sociocultural movement that wouldn't become clear until several years later.

In short, people are decreasingly interested in driving or even owning their own automobile. Figures from the Federal Highway Administration indicate that the number of 19-year-olds with a driver's license in the United States has fallen from over 87% in 1983 to under 69% as of 2022. And the difference is even starker the younger the teen. Fewer than 40% of eligible teenagers living in the United States hold a driver's license, for perspective, versus about two-thirds of this group three decades ago.

In a similar vein, a recent survey taken by Deloitte suggests that while only 11% of U.S. residents aged 55 and up would consider giving up their car, 44% of people under the age of 35 would at least be willing to entertain the idea, given their willingness to use other modes of transportation.

Connect the dots. Younger consumers are more comfortable with new ways of doing things. As they age, they'll further normalize this alternate mode of mobility.

Enter Uber Technologies (NYSE: UBER), which dominates the domestic ride-hailing business but has also set up shop overseas where the same growing disinterest in driving and vehicle ownership is evident. Last year's top-line growth of 18% to $44 billion extends a long-standing trend that's expected to persist at this pace for at least a few more years.

However, this growth trend will likely last for longer than just a few more years. Market research outfit Coherent Market Insights believes the global ride-hailing market is set to grow at an annualized pace of 13.5% through 2032. As a market leader, Uber is well-positioned to capture its fair share of this long-term growth. That is why the stock's lethargic performance since early last year is a buying opportunity.

Recursion Pharmaceuticals

Given the strides made by artificial intelligence just within the past few years, most investors would likely agree that it's only a matter of time before AI is being used to create new drugs. What most people might not realize, however, is that it's already happening. A company called Recursion Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: RXRX) currently uses such a developmental tool as well as offers it to third-party pharmaceutical companies.

It's called Recursion OS. Like any other ordinary LLM (large language model) AI platform, this one can sift through a massive amount of digital data and then combine contextually relevant information. It can then determine how a new therapeutic molecule might be assembled and then test how it might work as a treatment for a particular disease.

This approach's chief advantages over more conventional forms of drug research are ones you might guess: speed and cost. Whereas traditional pharma R&D work might require several years and hundreds of millions of dollars just to complete a trial that ends in failure, AI-based testing can be virtually completed for a fraction of the cost in a matter of weeks, if not days. This means the pharmaceutical industry can afford to take more swings, even knowing that most of them might end in failure.

Recursion's business is double-barreled, to be clear. Not only is it sharing revenue-bearing access to its platform with third-party drug companies that currently include Roche, Bayer, and Sanofi, but it's also working on some of its own stuff. All told, nearly a dozen drugs conceived and digitally tested within Recursion OS are now in actual, required clinical trials. Others were weeded out before wasting time and money on clinical testing.

That's still just the beginning, however. Global Market Insights expects the AI-powered drug discovery business to grow at an average annual rate of almost 30% between now and 2032. Recursion Pharmaceuticals is currently unprofitable. Given the industrywide tailwind, though, a swing to profitability could easily be in the cards within the next 10 years, catapulting this stock as a result.

IonQ

Finally, add IonQ (NYSE: IONQ) to your list of prospects that could dish out monster-sized returns over the course of the coming decade. You're probably familiar with how traditional computing devices -- like the one you're using right now -- work. A massive amount of digital information is racing around a computer chip, being translated into a form you can see and interact with comfortably.

As impressive as this technology may be, however, this tech's underlying binary code consisting of nothing but digital ones and zeros has actually become a bit limiting. There's a much more powerful option. By using subatomic particles as its basis, a so-called quantum computer can handle a massive amount of data. With quantum computing, in fact, calculations that might take a traditional computer decades to complete can now be done in a matter of minutes.

This speed, of course, has major implications for industries like artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and even the aforementioned drug discovery, just to name a few.

There is the not-so-small matter of practicality and cost. Such platforms are overkill for everyday web browsing, for instance, while purchasing one for heavy-duty number-crunching could easily cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more. Even just renting cloud-based access to a quantum computer can cost $50 per minute.

For the right purpose, though, plenty of institutions can come up with that kind of money, like the U.S. Air Force, the city of Busan (Korea), and the Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security (or ARLIS). All three organizations -- along with several others -- are now test-driving IonQ's tech to figure out how to best leverage this powerful new computing option. The company did $43 million worth of business last year, in fact, up 95% from 2023's top line.

But this still only scratches the surface. Precedence Research predicts that the worldwide quantum computing industry will see compound annualized growth of 31% through 2034, making the next 10 years incredibly exciting for one of the (very) few "pure plays" in the business.

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James Brumley has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Uber Technologies. The Motley Fool recommends Roche Holding AG. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

If you're unsure what to make of Walmart (NYSE: WMT), you're not alone. It's resilient, but certainly not immune to the effects of newly enacted tariffs. As CFO David Rainey recently noted: "The range of outcomes for Q1 operating income growth has widened due to less favorable category mix, higher casualty claims expense and the desire to maintain flexibility to invest in price as tariffs are implemented."

Translation? The retailer might be forced to spend a little more or accept narrower profit margins as a means of maintaining market share. The market sensed all this well before the statement was made, of course, which is why the stock is still well down from its February peak despite Wednesday's sizable surge.

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Now, take an honest look at the bigger picture. Walmart is as strong as it's been since its heyday growth of the 1980s and 90s, and far better equipped to handle tariffs than the market's giving it credit for. That spells opportunity for investors.

More strategic sourcing than most people think

Walmart is the world's biggest brick-and-mortar retailer, with 10,771 locations. More than 5,200 of these are in the U.S., where more than 90% of the population lives within 10 miles of a store. It did $681 billion worth of business last fiscal year, up 5% from the previous year's top line.

WMT Revenue (TTM) data by YCharts.

Size isn't everything, though. In fact, it can be a liability simply because the bigger an organization gets, the more difficult it becomes to manage. Any tariff-related headaches, of course, only aggravate such unwieldiness.

However, Walmart isn't nearly as vulnerable to the latest round of tariff-prompted turbulence as it seems like it should be. Roughly two-thirds of what the company spends on inventory is spent on American-made products, for perspective. So, while Mexico and China supply a significant portion of the other one-third of its merchandise costs and many of its U.S. suppliers are certainly affected by tariffs, Walmart is far from being catastrophically undermined, despite much of the recent rhetoric.

The company's also been making moves that ultimately offer it a means of maintaining reasonably wide profit margins. Walmart now manages more than 20 private label brands of its own that each drive more than $1 billion in annual sales, five of which are each generating more than $5 billion worth of yearly revenue. These in-house goods essentially sidestep the wholesaling stage of the procurement process, making them cheaper to put on store shelves than nationally branded merchandise.

Walmart's resilience as an investment, however, is rooted in far more than a careful refinement of how and where it sources its inventory.

The bigger-picture, philosophical bullish thesis

You could argue that Walmart's sheer size provides it with an unfair advantage over its competitors. And you'd be right. Investors don't want a fair fight, though. They want the companies they own to dominate their respective markets. Not only does this help keep competition in check, greater scale also allows an enterprise to operate more cost-effectively.

While e-commerce giant Amazon is now roughly the same size as Walmart in terms of total revenue, it's a somewhat misleading comparison. Less than half of Amazon's annual revenue stems from sales of physical products. The slightly bigger portion actually comes from subscription and service revenue, like Amazon Prime or its cloud computing business.

There's no denying that Walmart simply enjoys a physical reach that no brick-and-mortar competitor can match. Costco Wholesale only operates 890 locales, while Target's store count is less than 2,000. Given the U.S. Census Bureau's estimate that 84% of the country's retail spending is still done in store, this dominant market presence leaves Walmart very well-positioned for whatever the future holds on this front.

Bolstering this bullish argument is the fact that well over half of Walmart's business is groceries. This matters simply because -- regardless of any economic hardship -- people are going to need to eat. Many are going to lean on Walmart as their best bet for getting the most bang for their grocery buck, since the giant retailer is also better positioned than any other to push back on suppliers when its wholesale costs start to swell. The company's been doing exactly that for the past month, in fact.

Not only is Walmart likely to hold up to any brewing economic headwind, it might even thrive because of one. As Rainey commented at a recent investor event: "We see opportunities to accelerate share gains while maintaining flexibility to invest in price as tariffs are applied to incoming goods."

There's also the distinct possibility that the tariff war may end before it races out of control.

Now's the time to buy

This bullish argument begs the question: Why is this stock down as much as it is since February's peak? The right answer is also the most obvious one. That is, most investors are jumping to broad, sweeping conclusions based on rhetoric without knowing all the relevant facts. Had they known most of the information laid out above, the crowd might not be nearly as quick to dump Walmart stock.

Someone else's mistake can mean opportunity for you, though. Walmart was already a compelling long-term prospect, but given the likelihood of 2025 results that will be far better than recently presumed, the stock's a strong buy sooner rather than later.

The analyst community thinks so, anyway. It's calling for sales growth of more than 4% this year and the year after that, which is impressive given its size and the industry's usually slow movement. Despite recent disruption, the vast majority of this crowd also still considers Walmart stock a strong buy, with a consensus price target of $109.08 that's more than 20% above the stock's present price. That's certainly not a bad way to start out a new trade.

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Before you buy stock in Walmart, consider this:

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Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $495,226!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $679,900!*

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John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. James Brumley has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Costco Wholesale, Target, and Walmart. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Up more than 2,000% just since 2018, Axon Enterprise (NASDAQ: AXON) stock has already turned at least a few savvy investors into millionaires. The question is, can it do it again anytime soon? The cat's out of the bag, so to speak. It'll be tough for the security technology company to repeat the feat.

Never say never, though. Even if it's not likely to dish out a massive gain, it might still push you much closer to the seven-figure milestone.

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Axon Enterprise, up close and personal

On the off-chance you're reading this but aren't familiar with Axon, Enterprise is the outfit behind the Taser brand of conducted energy weapons. You know them better as stun guns.

That's not all Axon is anymore, however. In fact, its biggest business these days is actually body cameras and the video-evidence software that makes the most of them. It's even wading into the drone arena, marrying this technology with its surveillance and video-recording solutions. Last year, the company did nearly $2.1 billion worth of business, up 33% year over year, but extending a trend that's been in place for far longer.

AXON Revenue (TTM) data by YCharts

The need for less-lethal security options has never been greater, either. Neither has demand for recorded evidence of nearly all enforcement actions from law personnel. Litigation has been normalized, after all. The only meaningful way of responding is with more and better tools, and more information about any particular altercation.

And Axon shines on both fronts.

The value of so-called stun guns in this regard is clear. Rather than a bullet, conducted-energy weapons deliver an electrical charge that incapacitates their target. The company reports that these devices have been used in the field more than 5 million times since their introduction nearly 30 years ago, saving on the order of more than 300,000 lives that may have otherwise been taken by a conventional firearm.

They're safer to wield and use, too. Axon adds that in a review of more than 1,200 usage cases, serious accidental injuries only occurred 0.25% of the time.

This, of course, is only half the solution needed for the new societal norm. Body-worn cameras are also increasingly necessary, by virtue of recording interactions of all types between law enforcement officials and potential perpetrators. Its technology doesn't just record video, though. Its cameras can directly connect to software that turns this recording into credible, official evidence that can be analyzed and presented in a courtroom.

And as was noted, drones are now part of the company's repertoire. In areas where it may be dangerous or physically impossible for a law enforcement professional to be present, the Axon Air and Sky-Hero drones facilitate real-time situational awareness by feeding video back to the drone's pilot. While this is a relatively new business line for the organization, expectations are understandably high.

A major, well-rooted trend with some serious longevity

So what suddenly sent this stock soaring after more than a decade's worth of sideways movement?

It would be naïve to not acknowledge that the world has changed dramatically in just the past several years. For better or worse, the advent of the worldwide web as well as smartphones capable of recording video has made it possible to share accurate -- as well as misleading -- imagery, while the online crowd (again, for better or worse) is capable of clamoring in response to alarming altercations. Police and other law enforcement agencies have never needed to "get it right" more than they need to now, and hold themselves as accountable as the public they serve does.

The social movement is still young, however, and so is the industry. While data from the Police Executive Research Forum suggests that roughly four out of every five of this nation's police departments utilizes body-worn cameras, that doesn't mean every single officer working for those departments does. Numbers from the National Institute of Justice indicates that only about two-thirds of police personnel in the United States wear them, with sheriffs even less likely to do so.

And that's just local law enforcement. While federal law enforcement officials like those employed by the FBI are now mandated to wear them, many of them still don't due to lack of availability.

They're coming, though, as funding and supply will allow it -- here and abroad. Market research outfit Technavio predicts the worldwide body-worn camera business is set to grow at an annualized pace of 19% between now and 2029. Given its massive market share of the police sliver of this market, Axon is positioned to capture at least its fair share of this growth, inside and outside the United States. Cementing this lead is the fact that the company's evidentiary software has been proven to work seamlessly with its hardware.

Although it's much older, the stun-gun industry is catching this same sociocultural tailwind. Mordor Intelligence believes the worldwide conducted energy weapons business is likely to expand at an average yearly pace of 6% through 2030. That's not tremendous growth. However, given this business's enormous growth of late, it's a tough act to follow.

Axon, of course, also augments this business by monetizing the training needed to make proper use of them.

As for drones, Lucintel expects the law enforcement drone business to grow at a clip of 12% per year through 2030, now that the tech is affordable and ready to use as initially hoped.

Still bullish, even if not red-hot

These are encouraging outlooks, to be sure. The question remains, however: After a big run-up that reflects the now-obvious opportunity, is there any chance Axon stock could better help newcomers become millionaires than other investment options?

Yes, it could, but this call comes with a major footnote. That is, this name's biggest and fastest gains are likely in the rearview mirror. From here, this stock won't be quite as bullishly explosive. That's because the newness that excites investors has run its course.

That's OK, though. While its very biggest gains are in the past, there are still plenty of growth-driven gains waiting in the near and distant future. Analysts are calling for revenue improvement of more than 20% this year as well as next, for perspective, with growth of just another 20% expected the year after that. That's just a taste of the sort of progress that's apt to be in the cards further down the road, though.

This might help convince you to take your shot sooner than later: Despite this ticker's recent pullback, the analyst community remains quite bullish. More than half of them still rate this stock a strong buy, sporting a consensus 12-month price of $674.69 that's 22% above the stock's present price. That's not a bad way to start out a new trade.

Should you invest $1,000 in Axon Enterprise right now?

Before you buy stock in Axon Enterprise, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Axon Enterprise wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $495,226!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $679,900!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 796% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 155% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of April 10, 2025

James Brumley has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Axon Enterprise. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

How much do you need to save for retirement? For most people, the initial answer is "As much as possible." While that knee-jerk response is suspiciously unspecific, it certainly makes sense. You arguably can't tuck away too much for retirement. The worst-case result of that is having more than you need, allowing you to give away any excess however you see fit.

For most ordinary investors, saving "too much" isn't going to be a problem. The worry is not saving enough.

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One of the big keys to ensuring you're saving enough is setting a specific numeric goal, and then mathematically working your way backwards to a monthly investment that will allow you to reach that mark. Here's the number-crunching that will tell you how to amass a $1.46 million nest egg in a Roth IRA over the course of 35 years.

A not-so-hypothetical hypothetical

These numbers weren't randomly pulled out of a hat, by the way. They're relevant.

For instance, according to a 2024 survey performed by insurance and investment firm Northwestern Mutual, the average American thinks they'll need to save $1.46 million to secure a comfortable retirement. Given that this sum could reasonably generate on the order of $60,000 worth of reliable yearly investment income, this should be sufficient retirement income for most people when paired with whatever Social Security you're due.

As for the 35-year timeframe, that's a bit longer than most people typically work. But that's changing. Social Security's so-called full retirement age -- or FRA -- is now 67, giving people over 40 years' worth of adulthood to work before many of them will even be thinking about initiating benefits. People are also simply living longer, healthier lives, and choosing to remain in the workplace for personal productivity, if not for financial reasons. So collecting 35 years' worth of wages that can be used to fund an IRA is far from being unrealistic anymore.

What about a Roth IRA (as opposed to a traditional IRA)? Both would work, to be sure. Given the growing uncertainty of future income tax rates, though, there's a reason Roth IRAs are growing in popularity, even if they're still a minority of retirement accounts.

If some or none of these details apply to you, adjust accordingly. However, this is where most ordinary investors are during the early part of their wage-earning years, so this is a decent starting point for planning purposes.

The magic number

Here's the number: Contributing $400 per month into a Roth IRA and investing that money in an instrument matching the S&P 500's (SNPINDEX:^GSPC) average annual gain of 10% would leave you with just a little more than $1.5 million after 35 years.

Since this is a Roth account, not only has this growth been tax-free, any withdrawals from this IRA will also come out tax-free.

There's one important footnote to add here. That is, while $1.46 million is a reasonably healthy sum of money now, it won't necessarily be the small fortune then that it is today. Assuming just average inflation in the meantime, you'll actually want to amass nearly $4 million by then to have the same amount of buying power that $1.46 million provides right now.

On the other hand, this inflation also works in your favor. Regular pay raises will allow you to grow your monthly contribution from $400 now to a more significant amount in the future. So, that $4 million figure isn't nearly as out of reach as it seems and sounds like it is at this time.

It's also worth pointing out that while the hypothetical account above grew at a smooth and steady annual 10% pace, the market's far from being this consistent. Although you'll likely achieve similar net results with a long-term investment in the S&P 500, you won't be growing your account in the same straight line. Some years will be better than others. In some years you'll even lose ground, albeit temporarily.

Just get started -- when, where, and however you can

But what if you don't even have $400 per month to put toward the effort right now, or maybe you don't have 35 years? That's OK on both fronts -- it just changes the numbers.

The big takeaway here isn't a magic formula for reaching the average American's retirement savings target of $1.46 million. You may be fine with less, or you may need even more.

The chief lesson here, rather, is to just do what you can as soon as you can, since time actually does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to growing a nest egg. For instance, in the example above, tucking away $400 per month for 35 years only translates into total personal contributions of $168,000. The other $1.3 million came from growth achieved on these invested contributions.

The key is just getting started how, when, and where you can, even if it seems like you're not saving enough money to matter yet. You are. Every little bit helps, and it helps even more the sooner you put this money to work.

Where to invest $1,000 right now

When our analyst team has a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, Stock Advisor’s total average return is 796%* — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 155% for the S&P 500.

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