Key Points

• Artificial intelligence-powered drug development isn't a mere premise anymore. Recursion Pharmaceuticals has made it a reality.

• The next era of e-commerce favors platforms like Shopify's, which allows brands to connect with consumers outside of massive digital shopping malls.

• U.S. drivers may not be big fans of electric vehicles, but that's not the case everywhere else.

• 10 stocks we like better than Shopify ›

Are Americans saving enough money to fund a comfortable retirement? Probably not. As the Motley Fool's own research indicates, as of 2022 the median retirement savings for U.S. households is a mere $87,000. That means half of the country has saved up more, while the other half has saved less. Even being in the upper half of the crowd, however, isn't necessarily enough.

Committing more of your income to the effort is still only half the battle though. You'll also need to get more out of your money while you're growing your nest egg. This means achieving bigger gains without taking on significantly more risk.

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Continue »

Here's a closer look at three growth stocks you could buy and hold for decades as a means of supercharging your portfolio's growth. While each of these tickers brings some added risk and volatility to the table that will require regular monitoring, their long-term upside potential is arguably worth the work.

Recursion Pharmaceuticals

While artificial intelligence (AI) still has of room for improvement, the writing is on the wall -- the technology will be tackling complex problems that individuals and institutions just can't. This includes designing and testing pharmaceuticals.

Well, the future is here. Recursion Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: RXRX) has built an AI-powered platform capable of virtually testing a drug rather than requiring a full-blown clinical trial of an idea. Leveraging 36 petabytes (36 million gigabytes) of digital biological and chemical data, its so-called Recursion OS can accomplish what would normally take years and millions of dollars in a matter of days at a fraction of the cost.

And it's no mere theory. The technology is not only functioning -- it's commercialized. A handful of pharma companies including Roche and Sanofi are using Recursion OS to tackle some of their own developmental work, while Recursion is working on some drugs of its own. All of these drug candidates will still need to go through the actual clinical trial process to satisfy regulatory agencies like the FDA. Recursion's software facilitates focus though, by virtue of weeding out less promising drug prospects so more resources can be devoted to more promising ones. That's huge.

It's still relatively early for Recursion, and for that matter, the AI-assisted drug-development industry itself. Recursion Pharmaceuticals remains in the red, and will likely remain there for at least a few more years. This arguably makes Recursion the riskiest of the three stocks being put under the microscope here.

Just understand the potential reward is commensurate with the risk. Recursion Pharmaceuticals is nearing a revenue and profit turning point in front of what Straits Research believes will be average annualized growth of nearly 32% for the artificial intelligence drug-development industry through 2030. This tailwind alone should be enough to push Recursion to profitability. That makes this stock's prolonged and persistent weakness since peaking in 2021 is a fantastic buying opportunity.

Shopify

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) is in no immediate danger of being dethroned as the king of North America's e-commerce scene. But it's no longer able to simply bully the rest of the industry. Competitors are successfully pushing back... just not in the way you might have expected. Rather than one or two rival names making inroads, brands and merchants are taking matters into their own hands by setting up their own online stores as a means of working all the way around Amazon's domination.

And they've largely got Shopify (NASDAQ: SHOP) to thank for the option.

In simplest terms, Shopify helps companies establish their own in-house e-commerce presence. From websites to payment-processing to inventory-management to marketing, Shopify can do it all, making it easy for businesses of all sizes to stay focused on more important matters (like running that business). Although the company no longer discloses how many clients are using its technology, it does divulge the scope of its business. Last year, Shopify's solutions facilitated the sale of $292.3 billion worth of goods and services, up 24% year over year to extend a long-established growth streak. Shopify collected $8.9 billion worth of revenue for itself in the process, turning a little over $1 billion of it into net income.

SHOP Revenue (Quarterly) data by YCharts

This growth still only scratches the surface of the opportunity though. Market research outfit eMarketer reports that only a little more than one-fifth of the world's retail spending is currently done online. The rest is still taking place in brick-and-mortar stores.

While certainly some of these sales will never move online, much of it can. Brand-owned and merchant-managed online stores are positioned to capture more than their fair share of whatever growth awaits the e-commerce industry, however, as these players increasingly see the value in establishing their own direct relationships with customers. In this vein, analysts expect Shopify to produce top-line growth in the ballpark of 20% in each of the three years ahead.

Nio

Finally, add Nio (NYSE: NIO) to your list of stocks to buy and hold for decades if you want a shot at building a bigger retirement nest egg.

It wouldn't be surprising if you'd never heard of it. Although it's finding a bit of traction in Europe, the Chinese maker of electric vehicles predominantly serves China itself. It delivered 72,056 electrified cars during the second quarter of this year, up nearly 26% from the year-ago comparison, underscoring production growth that's been in place for some time now.

Think the electric vehicle (EV) market is hitting a wall due to disinterest? Not so fast. That's largely an American phenomenon. Data gathered by CleanTechnica indicates sales of electric vehicles in China soared 25% to 1.1 million units last month, accounting for more than half of the country's entire automobile sales.

Image source: Getty Images.

That's still just the beginning though. The International Energy Agency expected EVs to account for 80% of China's total car sales by 2030, thanks to supportive policies that encourage the alternative to combustion-powered vehicles. It's making inroads in Europe as well, for the same reason. And, while there's little incentive for the company to make a push into the United States' anemic EV market right now, if and when domestic interest perks up, Nio has maintained tentative plans for that possibility.

It could be a while before Nio works its way out of the red and into the black -- it simply needs more scale. This could make the stock a little less than completely comfortable to own in the interim.

It's making clear progress on the production as well as the profitability front though, and will almost certainly get there sooner or later, and likely sooner. Given how inevitable this outcome now seems, the market's apt to reward the progress en route to fiscal viability.

Should you invest $1,000 in Shopify right now?

Before you buy stock in Shopify, 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 Shopify 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 $636,628!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,063,471!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 1,041% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 183% 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 July 21, 2025

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

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.

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Learn More »

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.

Data source: StockAnalysis.com. Chart by author.

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.

Should you invest $1,000 in IonQ right now?

Before you buy stock in IonQ, 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 IonQ 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 $561,046!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $606,106!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 811% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 153% 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 21, 2025

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.

Shares of Recursion Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: RXRX) were skyrocketing around 20% higher as of 11 a.m. ET on Friday. The big gain for the biotech stock came after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Thursday that it plans to replace the use of animals in testing drugs with "more effective, human-relevant methods," including artificial intelligence (AI) models.

Recursion uses AI in its drug discovery and development processes. The company built one of the largest datasets in the biopharmaceutical industry with over 60 petabytes of data.

Start Your Mornings Smarter! Wake up with Breakfast news in your inbox every market day. Sign Up For Free »

What will the FDA's move mean for Recursion?

The FDA will initially focus on monoclonal antibodies with its initiative to replace animal testing and later expand to other types of drugs. How will the agency's move impact Recursion? It's too soon to know for sure.

However, it's possible that other drugmakers could be more interested in teaming up with Recursion with the FDA promoting the use of AI models in drug development. Recursion already partners with four big pharmaceutical companies: Bayer, Merck KGaA, Roche's Genentech unit, and Sanofi.

Is Recursion Pharmaceuticals stock a buy?

Recursion Pharmaceuticals stock isn't a good fit for risk-averse investors. The company remains unprofitable and is losing more money as it ramps up clinical development of several candidates. Recursion's most advanced program is only in phase 1/2 testing. There's no guarantee that any of the pipeline candidates will be successful in clinical studies and win regulatory approvals.

However, aggressive investors could find Recursion Pharmaceuticals attractive. Its collaborations with big drugmakers give it more stability than many clinical-stage biotech companies have. The company is also backed by Nvidia. Recursion's AI-driven processes hold significant potential. This is a risky pick, but one that just might pay off handsomely over the long run.

Should you invest $1,000 in Recursion Pharmaceuticals right now?

Before you buy stock in Recursion Pharmaceuticals, 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 Recursion Pharmaceuticals 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 $496,779!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $659,306!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 787% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 152% 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

Keith Speights has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends Roche Holding AG. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.