© Build A Rocket Boy
A few months ago, my friend asked me to look at her WordPress website. Her online store looked great, but she was frustrated because visitors weren’t buying anything. After spending just 30 minutes on her site, I could see exactly why—the user experience was all over the place.
I’ve seen this same problem a lot of times. Small business owners focus so much on making their sites look pretty that they forget about making them easy to use.
The result? High bounce rates, low conversions, and missed opportunities.
That’s why I put together this guide with 13 practical tips to improve your WordPress user experience. These simple changes can dramatically boost your conversions and keep visitors coming back for more.
User experience (UX) is about how easy and enjoyable it is for visitors to use your WordPress website. This applies whether they’re reading your blog, exploring your services, or making a purchase.
Think about what happens when customers walk into a well-organized store. 🛒
If everything’s easy to find and the checkout is quick, people are more likely to stay longer, browse, and buy.
The same applies to other websites: a clear navigation menu, fast load times, and a clean design keep visitors engaged.
But if your site is confusing, slow to load, or crowded with too many elements, many users will get frustrated and leave. And most won’t come back. In fact, even a one-second delay in page speed can cause conversions to drop by 7%.
That’s why good UX isn’t optional — it’s essential. The right design choices make your site easier to use and help guide visitors toward taking action, whether that’s subscribing to your email newsletter, signing up, or making a purchase.
And the best part? Many of these improvements are easy to set up, even if you’re not a developer. I’ll walk you through the most effective tips in the sections below.
Here’s a quick overview of all the tips I’ll cover in this guide:
Ready? Let’s get started.
Before you can improve your WordPress site’s user experience, you need to know who you’re designing for. A great way to start is by creating simple user personas, which are fictional profiles that represent your typical visitors.
For example, if you’re running a WordPress blog targeting busy parents, one of your personas could be “Sarah.” She’s a working mom looking for time-saving tips, easy-to-follow guides, and parenting hacks to manage her busy life.
Having user personas in mind helps you tailor your website’s features and content to better serve your audience. To create one, I recommend trying the free HubSpot Make My Persona tool.
Once you understand who your users are, it becomes easier to make design and content choices that actually help them.
It’s even more important to get direct feedback from your visitors if your site is already up and running. In my experience, even a simple feedback survey can uncover valuable insights about your site’s navigation, design, or content.
You can gather real feedback using tools like UserFeedback. For example, you might create a feedback form that displays across your website so that users can share what’s working (or what isn’t).
You might ask user experience feedback questions like, “Was this page helpful?” or “What information were you hoping to find?” This way, you collect direct, actionable feedback.
You can also easily create surveys and polls to gather visitor feedback with a tool like WPForms. For instance, you could run a quick poll asking which new features your users would like to see next or set up a short survey with a rating system to learn more about their overall experience.
The more you learn about your audience, the better your UX decisions will be — and the more likely your visitors will be to stick around, explore, and take action.
For more details, we have a full guide on how to choose a target audience.
📝 Insider Tips: At WPBeginner, we use WPForms to create and manage our annual reader survey. Its extensive library of 2,000+ templates, AI tools, and drag-and-drop builder make it incredibly easy to use. You can learn more about its features in our complete WPForms review.
Meanwhile, UserFeedback has helped us set up interactive surveys and understand the needs of our web design customers. It has 20+ questionnaire templates and different question types. See our extensive UserFeedback review for insights into what it can do.
A UX audit is basically a deep dive into your website from a visitor’s point of view. It helps you spot anything that might be confusing, so you can fix it as soon as possible.
One of the first things you’ll want to do is test your site for usability issues. This means checking how easily someone can navigate your site, find what they need, or complete an action.
Even minor issues, like a misplaced or hidden button, can negatively impact the user experience.
I always recommend walking through important steps on your site, like submitting a contact form or making a purchase, just like a first-time visitor would.
Take note of any steps that feel confusing, slow, or frustrating — these are your pain points and bottlenecks to address.
It’s also a good idea to track the time it takes to go from finding a feature to completing the desired action. This way, you know exactly how much time a user typically takes to convert or complete a specific action.
For a full walkthrough, be sure to check out our expert tips for how to do a UX audit in WordPress.
User experience isn’t just about design — it’s also about data. Tracking how users actually interact with your WordPress site helps you make smart decisions that improve usability and drive results.
While Google Analytics (GA) is the gold standard for tracking data, it can be tricky for beginners to set up and navigate. That’s why I always recommend using MonsterInsights.
It’s a user-friendly Google Analytics plugin for WordPress that gives you the insights you need without having to navigate complex reports.
With MonsterInsights, you can track user behavior, set up conversion goals, and improve your site’s performance, all inside your WordPress dashboard. At WPBeginner, our team uses MonsterInsights every day to see this data.
For more insights into its features, see our full MonsterInsights review.
MonsterInsights also lets you keep an eye on key metrics like:
These insights are accessible on the MonsterInsights Reports page. They can help you spot what’s working and what needs improvement.
For more information, see our guide on WordPress conversion tracking.
Using heatmaps is another powerful way to visualize behavior. Heatmaps and session recording tools like Microsoft Clarity and UserFeedback show you exactly where people click, scroll, or get stuck.
This is especially helpful for refining navigation paths or identifying parts of your layout that are being ignored.
For more information on this topic, read our guide on how to set up heatmaps in WordPress.
More than half of all website traffic comes from mobile devices. That means if your WordPress blog or site doesn’t look or work right on a phone, you’re likely losing visitors before they even get to your content.
To prevent this from happening, I always recommend using a responsive WordPress theme. These themes will adjust automatically to different screen sizes — whether someone’s on a tablet, phone, or desktop.
Most modern themes include this feature, but it’s always good to double-check.
In my opinion, Sydney is one of the best responsive themes on the market. It’s also flexible and lightweight, and comes with 17+ starter templates.
It makes building a mobile-friendly site easy, thanks to the 8 mobile-ready header styles, drag-and-drop sections, and full design control.
Plus, there’s a free version of Sydney that you can use to get started!
Next, just because your website looks fine on a laptop doesn’t mean it’s easy to tap through on a phone. That’s why I suggest avoiding small text, hard-to-click buttons, and menus that are difficult to open.
The good news is that you can preview the mobile layout of your site from your WordPress content editor.
Some page and theme builders, like SeedProd, even let you customize the mobile version of your site from the editor.
For more information about this, you can explore our expert tips for creating a mobile-friendly WordPress site.
Did you know that websites are considered “places of public accommodation”? That’s why the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) allows people to file complaints if a website doesn’t meet accessibility standards.
This is a good reason to make sure your site is inclusive for all users, including people with visual, hearing, or motor impairments.
But making your website accessible doesn’t just help people with disabilities. It also improves the user experience for everyone.
One easy accessibility adjustment you can make is adding alt text and titles to your images:
When it comes to fonts, ideally, you’ll want to pick options that are easy to read.
At WPBeginner, we use Proxima Nova for its clean look and readability. It’s sleek, contemporary, and subtly elegant, which is ideal for blogs, portfolios, and media companies.
Another good one is Lato, which you can see on the WPForms website. It’s welcoming and approachable with a balanced design, perfect for mobile apps, retail stores, and eCommerce websites.
But simply choosing a good font isn’t enough. You also need to make sure there’s enough contrast between the text and the background color.
And even with the right font and contrast, some users may still struggle with reading the text if it’s too small. One simple way to make your site more accessible is by letting visitors resize the text.
All that said, true ADA compliance goes beyond just these basic steps. It involves adhering to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which provide a comprehensive framework for making web content accessible to people with disabilities.
For more in-depth insights, check out our guide on how to improve accessibility on your WordPress site.
Confusing navigation is one of the fastest ways to lose visitors. But the good news is that you can avoid this with an intuitive navigation menu. You’ll want it to be clear, simple, and easy to follow.
You can start by creating a logical menu structure. Stick to familiar terms like “Home,” “About,” “Blog,” “Shop,” and “Contact” so users immediately know where to go.
For example, if you’re running a business website where you sell software, your navigation should make it easy for visitors to learn about your products. In this case, key links might include “Features,” “Solutions,” “Pricing,” and “Resources.”
Plus, you may want to group similar content under dropdowns to avoid cluttering the top menu with too many items.
A mega menu can be particularly helpful for larger sites. This basically consists of multiple dropdown menus to help organize large amounts of content, products, or information.
For example, WPForms uses this menu type in their navigation to neatly group features, tutorials, and resources. This makes it easy for visitors to find what they need quickly.
For more information, see our guide on how to add a navigation menu in WordPress.
It’s also a good idea to add breadcrumbs, which are small links that show users where they are on your site (like Home > Blog > Article Name).
Breadcrumbs make it easy for visitors to backtrack and are especially helpful for blogs and online stores with lots of content.
Finally, if you want to provide your visitors with the best possible navigation experience, I suggest optimizing your WordPress search.
The default search function isn’t always the most accurate or helpful. Upgrading it can make a big difference, especially if you have a content-heavy site where users need to quickly find posts, products, or resources.
To do this, I recommend starting by reviewing your site’s search stats. This can show you what visitors are looking for, what they can’t easily find, and whether your current search function is meeting their needs.
From there, you can upgrade your WordPress search to deliver faster, more accurate results. Learn more about it in our guide on how to improve WordPress search.
A cluttered website can overwhelm your visitors and make it hard for them to focus. It can be tempting to overdo your design with fancy features, loud colors, and animations, but it’s not always the best option.
On the other hand, clean design helps guide people’s attention to what really matters — whether that’s your content, products, or call-to-action.
That’s why I strongly recommend using clean, minimalist design principles.
For starters, it’s usually best to stick to a consistent color scheme and limit your font choices to two or three. This keeps things looking polished and makes your content easier to read.
For example, on WPBeginner, we use our famous orange as the primary color on our website, and Proxima Nova as our font.
Using plenty of white space also prevents your layout from feeling crowded or cluttered. It not only looks modern but also makes your site feel more organized and professional.
I recommend keeping each page focused by limiting the number of elements, like popups, banners, and widgets, unless they serve a clear purpose.
Too many distractions can make it hard for visitors to choose what to do next, which often leads to confusion or even higher bounce rates.
In contrast, a clean and minimalist design improves the user experience. This can also increase conversions, generate more leads, and boost engagement!
One of the easiest ways to ensure a good balance of color, fonts, and white space is by using a well-designed theme, like Sydney, Neve, or OceanWP.
For tips on picking the right theme, check out our guide on selecting the perfect theme for WordPress.
If you already know you want something minimalist and easy to set up, you can take a look at our list of the best simple WordPress themes for a professional, clutter-free design.
Alternatively, you can use a page builder like SeedProd to create custom layouts that give you more control over design elements.
SeedProd lets you drag and drop elements to build landing pages, sales pages, coming soon pages, and even entire WordPress themes — no coding needed.
It’s perfect for beginners and non-technical users who need a completely custom look.
Did you know? Duplicator’s website was custom-built using SeedProd. To learn more about what the page builder can do, see our extensive SeedProd review.
To get started building your custom pages, see our expert checklist of key design elements for an effective WordPress website.
ℹ️ Insider Tip: Want a professionally designed WordPress site without all the heavy lifting? Our WordPress Website Design Service starts at just $599 — perfect for bringing your vision to life, hassle-free.
When you showcase your content in an organized and user-friendly way, you’ll be more likely to get your message across.
To organize your content better, I recommend starting by using clear headings. They are like signposts that guide visitors along your page.
You can also use these headings to create a table of contents, like we do on the WPBeginner blog. That way, readers can quickly jump to the parts of a post or page that interest them most.
Many of our posts also start with a brief overview and then break into actionable steps using bullet points. Here’s why that helps with content organization:
Visuals can make a big difference, too. Adding images, videos, or infographics can help illustrate your points and simplify complex ideas.
In our A/B test tutorial, for example, we included a screenshot of our test results. This visual comparison helped readers quickly see which version won and why it was more effective, making the concept of A/B testing more concrete and actionable. (You’ll learn more about A/B testing in Tip #10!)
Additionally, a quick explainer GIF can help keep visitors engaged and make your content more memorable.
Want to boost interaction? I also recommend including interactive polls, sliders, or fun quizzes using WordPress plugins. These small touches can make your content feel more dynamic and invite visitors to actively participate.
Looking for more details on how you can improve the way you present content? Check out our guide on how to write a great blog post and structure it.
How quickly your website loads plays a big role in user experience. A delay of just one second can cause people to lose interest and leave your site.
That’s why improving your WordPress website’s performance should be a top priority.
To start, you’ll want to use a caching plugin. Caching stores a ready-to-go copy of your site, so it loads much faster for repeat visitors.
Plugins like WP Rocket or WP Super Cache make this super easy.
I tested WP Rocket to see how it works, and it turned out to be really easy!
During testing, I enabled mobile caching to ensure a smooth experience on all devices. I also activated user caching to support logged-in users on WooCommerce and membership sites.
Then, I adjusted the cache lifespan based on how often the site content was updated, and enabled file minification and lazy loading.
These tweaks alone helped reduce my test site’s page load times by over 40%, and bounce rates also dropped.
For details, please see our guide on how to properly install and set up WP Rocket in WordPress.
Another way to boost your speed is by adding a CDN (Content Delivery Network).
A CDN stores copies of your site’s files on servers around the world, which means users load your site from the server closest to them. This can dramatically cut down load times, especially if you have visitors from different parts of the globe.
If you’re not sure where to start, we have a handy guide on how to set up Cloudflare’s free CDN in WordPress.
It’s also important to compress your images. Large image files are one of the biggest reasons sites slow down.
You can shrink your images without losing quality by using tools like TinyPNG or plugins like EWWW Image Optimizer that automate the process for you.
While you’re at it, consider switching to modern image formats like WebP. These formats offer better compression compared to traditional JPEG or PNG files, so your pages load even faster without sacrificing image quality.
Finally, don’t forget to test your site’s performance regularly. Free tools like GTmetrix or Google PageSpeed Insights can analyze your site and give you specific suggestions to make it even faster.
For more information and tips on improving site speed, refer to our ultimate guide to boosting WordPress performance.
ℹ️ Insider Tip: Want expert help speeding up your WordPress site? Our Site Speed Optimization Service can take care of it for you — starting at just $699!
When it comes to improving your site’s user experience, small tweaks can lead to big results — but how do you know what actually works?
That’s where A/B testing comes in.
A/B testing is a method for comparing two versions of a webpage or element (like a button or headline) to see which one works better.
Here’s how it works: You create two variations (A and B), show them to different groups of visitors, and then see which version gets more clicks, conversions, or engagement.
With tools like Thrive Optimize, setting up an A/B test is easy. It will then help you track which version gets more clicks, signups, or sales.
You can test things like:
For example, in Thrive Optimize, I ran a test where I changed the color of the call-to-action (CTA) button on a landing page. After editing the variation, I split traffic between versions and started the A/B test.
This process is intuitive, and instead of relying on gut feeling, you’ll have real data to back up your design and content choices!
For example, you might find that a shorter headline keeps users engaged longer, or that moving your CTA higher on the page increases conversions.
Most A/B testing tools will automatically show the winning version once enough data has been collected, helping you continuously improve your site without guessing.
For details on how to do it, refer to our guide on how to do A/B split testing in WordPress.
🧑💻 Pro Tip: I recommend starting with high-impact pages, such as your homepage, sales page, or lead capture forms, where even a small improvement can make a significant difference.
If your posts or pages include too much unnecessary content, it can make it harder for your audience to understand your message.
That’s why it’s always best to keep your content focused and intentional. Every page should have a clear goal, and every section of content should support that goal.
If you’re building a landing page, for example, the layout and copy should guide visitors toward a single action, like signing up for your newsletter or downloading a free resource.
For tips on building landing pages, please see our complete guide on increasing your landing page conversions.
When it comes to writing blog posts, the same rule applies. Publishing every idea that comes to mind might fill your site with content, but it won’t always serve your readers.
It is better to focus on topics that align with your niche and help your audience solve real problems.
To take it a step further, you can group related posts around a main pillar page using a content cluster strategy. This helps improve navigation and build authority in your niche.
We have a full tutorial on how to build content clusters in WordPress, including how to plan them around your areas of expertise.
It also helps to do regular content audits. This is because, over time, some posts stop performing — either because they’re outdated or because search intent has changed.
This is called content decay. For example, a blog post called ‘Top SEO Tips for 2020’ might no longer rank well in search results because SEO practices have evolved.
So, during your regular content audits, you’ll want to review older pages and decide: should I keep, update, or delete the content?
A little cleanup goes a long way in keeping visitors engaged and helping them find exactly what they need.
When people can actively interact with your pages, they will naturally stay on your site longer.
Creating opportunities for user interaction can make all the difference.
A great place to start is your comments section. If it feels outdated, clunky, or inactive, people might not bother leaving a reply.
To give it an update, you can add like/dislike buttons. This way, your visitors can engage with the conversation even if they don’t want to post.
Alternatively, you might want to feature a simple user ranking system. For instance, you can pin top comments to the top of the section or award badges to users who consistently leave helpful remarks.
These small touches motivate readers to participate and foster a stronger community around your content.
To do all this, you can upgrade your comment system using a plugin like Thrive Comments. It helps create a better experience that encourages more interaction and discussion.
For insights about the plugin, see our in-depth Thrive Themes Suite review. Need more tool recommendations? Feel free to check out our expert picks of the best plugins to improve WordPress comments.
Want to take user interaction to the next level?
Creating space for real-time conversations can turn your website into a more inclusive and supportive place. Providing a platform for real-time interaction helps create community and encourages return visits.
If you’re running an eLearning, support-based, or membership site, adding a live chat feature can make a significant impact. It allows users to ask questions about course material or get help with platform features.
For other types of websites, such as online stores or service-based sites, live chat offers immediate support. Users can easily get help with a product feature, clarifying a service detail, or resolving a technical issue.
Learn more about it in our guide on how to add live chat in WordPress.
Want something more community-focused? You can create private chat rooms or discussion boards using tools like BuddyBoss.
This is especially helpful for membership programs or online courses, where people want to connect with others on the same journey.
Hop over to our guide on how to create chat rooms in WordPress to learn more.
Sometimes, even a small theme or plugin update can break your layout without you noticing. That’s where visual regression testing comes in.
Visual regression testing (VRT) helps you make sure that updates to your website don’t accidentally mess up its look or design.
The process is simple – your VRT software takes ‘screenshots’ of a page before and after you make changes to it. It analyzes the code or pixel differences of these pages to catch any visual issues early, before they hurt the user experience.
The VRTs plugin is one of the best tools for automating this process. For step-by-step instructions, you can read our guide on how to do visual regression testing in WordPress.
I hope my tips and tricks help you improve user experience in WordPress. Next, you might want to check out our guide on how to add a forum to your site and our expert picks of key design elements for an effective WordPress website.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
The post How to Improve User Experience in WordPress (13 Practical Tips) first appeared on WPBeginner.
One weakness of Valve's Steam Deck gaming handheld and SteamOS is that, by default, they will only run Windows games from Steam that are supported by the platform's Proton compatibility layer (plus the subset of games that run natively on Linux). It's possible to install alternative game stores, and Proton's compatibility is generally impressive, but SteamOS still isn't a true drop-in replacement for Windows.
Microsoft and Asus' co-developed ROG Xbox Ally is trying to offer PC gamers a more comprehensive compatibility solution that also preserves a SteamOS-like handheld UI by putting a new Xbox-branded user interface on top of traditional Windows. And while this interface will roll out to the ROG Xbox Ally first, Microsoft told The Verge that the interface would come to other Ally handhelds next and that something "similar" would be "rolling out to other Windows handhelds starting next year."
Bringing a Steam Deck-style handheld-optimized user interface to Windows is something Microsoft has been experimenting with internally since at least 2022, when employees at an internal hackathon identified most of Windows' handheld deficiencies in a slide deck about a proposed "Windows Handheld Mode."
© Microsoft/Twitter user _h0x0d_
Julia Beverly/WireImage/Getty Images
Mark Cuban is sounding the alarm on Bluesky's declining engagement — and he's not pulling his punches.
In a series of Bluesky posts, the billionaire investor and entrepreneur criticized the platform for fostering an echo chamber that he said was driving users away and inadvertently boosting traffic back to Elon Musk's X.
"The lack of diversity of thought here is really hurting usage," Cuban wrote, linking to a Washington Post opinion piece headlined "BlueSky's decline stems from never hearing from the other side."
Once known for "great give-and-take discussions on politics and news," Cuban said Bluesky had become a monoculture where dissent was unwelcome and nuance was vanishing.
"Engagement went from great convos on many topics, to 'agree with me or you are a Nazi fascist,'" he posted.
A graph of Bluesky's unique daily posters supports his concern.
On February 28, Bluesky had more than 1 million unique users daily. Since then, engagement has plummeted, with June 7 and 8 hovering well below that peak at about 670,000 daily posters.
BlueSky's rise accelerated following the election of President Donald Trump, whom CEO Musk backed financially, and after X introduced new terms of service.
Many X users migrated to Bluesky, with some 2.5 million joining in one week in November.
Some were seeking a friendlier, more open platform with less hate speech and misinformation, and more control over what content is shown in their feeds.
A startup, BlueArk, even sprang up to help users migrate their X/Twitter histories to Bluesky, porting over millions of posts and creating the illusion of continuity on a new platform.
At the time, Cuban told Business Insider he preferred Bluesky over alternatives due to its variety of content and growing engagement.
Now, some of the earliest and most visible converts, including Cuban, are questioning whether the migration created a new community, or just repackaged the same silos.
"Why would anyone stop using Twitter if the only topic that is acceptable to you is news and politics?" he asked.
Cuban also criticized the platform's culture, saying: "The replies on here may not be as racist as Twitter, but they damn sure are hateful."
Posts about AI, business, or healthcare — traditionally strong areas for Cuban — often gain little traction or were met with outright hostility, he added.
Cuban also questioned Bluesky's business model: "How does everyone suggest BlueSky survive as a business? Or do you not care?"
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
No one wants to own cable networks anymore.
Would you like to buy some?
That is the pitch that Warner Bros. Discovery is making to Wall Street now that it has announced it's splitting itself into two companies: One will own Warners' movie and television studio and the HBO Max streaming service; the other — which it's calling its "global networks" unit — will own a bunch of cable TV networks including CNN, TNT, Discovery and the Food Network.
If that sounds familiar, it's for two reasons:
WBD has been contemplating this for a long time.
Last summer, it floated the same idea but didn't go forward with it. In December, it all but said it was going to do this, after all, by splitting itself up internally. Now it's doing it for real.
Comcast is doing the same thing.
Last October, Comcast said it would bundle almost all of its cable channels into a separate company (which it's calling Versant, for some reason) and hang onto its movie and TV studio and its Peacock streaming service.
Like Comcast, WBD insists that no, really, it's splitting off its cable TV networks so they can grow and thrive on their own, and you'd be lucky to buy a piece of them.
"The global networks business is a real business," WBD CEO David Zaslav said on the company's investor call Monday morning.
That is definitely true, since those cable networks continue to generate profits. It's also something you don't normally feel compelled to say when you're selling something people want to buy.
Because the big picture here is that both WBD and Comcast have concluded what investors — and people who watch things on TV — have concluded long ago: The cable TV business is a shrinking business, as more and more people cut the cord or simply never sign up for one. And the people who continue to watch cable TV are getting older and smaller in number.
The WBD split will generate all kinds of questions to ponder. Some of them are technical: How will WBD's $35 billion in debt be split up between the companies? How will the split companies approach future distribution deals with the likes of Comcast and Charter? How quickly could Comcast and WBD combine their two cable groups into one bigger cable group? Will the split help WBD's stock (it's up Monday — but note that Comcast also spiked when it announced its deal last fall, and has fallen some 20% since)?
Some questions the WBD split can generate may also matter to people who don't care about corporate finance. Such as: What does this mean for the future of CNN — the news channel that's struggling to find a lane in a loud and crowded media environment, but whose brand still has lots of potential value?
But the big takeaway is the obvious takeaway: The people who run the biggest collections of cable TV channels in the country would like someone else to own them. Because every quarter, the number of people who watch those channels and pay for those channels gets smaller.
Like I said late last year: These are garage sales. Maybe someone will want to own shrinking businesses that still throw off lots of cash (paging private equity). But the people who have them now think they'd be better off without them. Buyer beware.
Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang thinks that data center operators will spend $1 trillion every year on chips and infrastructure by 2028 to meet growing demand for computing capacity from next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) models.
That spending will be an enormous tailwind for Nvidia, which supplies the world's most powerful data center chips for AI development. But the benefits will also flow through to the company's competitors, not to mention suppliers of other data center hardware components. There is an opportunity for investors to profit from this tech revolution, and buying an exchange-traded fund (ETF) might be the simplest way to do so.
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 »
The iShares Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ: SOXX) invests exclusively in suppliers of chips and components, and its top holdings happen to be three of the biggest names in AI: Nvidia, Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), and Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD). The ETF has outperformed the broader stock market since its establishment in 2001, and here's how it could turn an investment of $250,000 into $1 million within the coming decade.
Image source: Getty Images.
Some ETFs hold thousands of different stocks, but the iShares Semiconductor ETF holds just 30. It aims to offer investors exposure to companies that design, manufacture, and distribute semiconductors, primarily those that stand to benefit from megatrends such as AI.
Since the ETF was established in 2001, it has helped investors successfully navigate several tech revolutions driven by the internet, enterprise software, smartphones, and cloud computing. It's now heavily geared toward AI, and its top five holdings are among the biggest names in the hardware side of the industry:
|
Stock |
iShares ETF Portfolio Weighting |
|---|---|
|
1. Broadcom |
10.07% |
|
2. Nvidia |
8.74% |
|
3. Texas Instruments |
7.49% |
|
4. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) |
7.30% |
|
5. Qualcomm |
5.83% |
Data source: iShares. Portfolio weightings are accurate as of June 4, 2025, and are subject to change. ETF = exchange-traded fund.
Nvidia's graphics processing units (GPUs) are the most popular data center chips among AI developers. The company's latest GPU architectures, Blackwell and Blackwell Ultra, are designed for a new generation of AI models capable of 'reasoning,' which means they spend time thinking in the background to generate the most accurate responses.
Jensen Huang says some of these models consume up to 1,000 times more computing capacity than traditional one-shot large language models (LMs), hence his lofty spending forecast mentioned earlier.
Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet are three of Nvidia's biggest customers. They are seasoned data center operators because of their industry-leading cloud platforms, but they are now racing to build AI infrastructure to meet surging demand from developers.
But these companies are also trying to diversify their hardware portfolios by designing their own chips in collaboration with suppliers like Broadcom, which helps with the design and manufacturing processes. Broadcom is targeting a $90 billion market opportunity for its custom AI accelerator chips by 2027, with just three customers already on board and more in the pipeline. Plus, the company is a leading supplier of networking equipment, which helps to extract the most performance from AI chips.
Then there is AMD, which released a line of GPUs to compete directly with Nvidia in the data center. This year, the company will start shipping its latest chips based on its CNA (Compute DNA) 4 architecture, which was designed to rival Blackwell. AMD is also already a leader in AI chips for personal computers, which could be a major growth area in the future.
Investors will also find other leading AI chip stocks, such as Micron Technology, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, and Arm Holdings, outside the top five holdings in the iShares ETF.
The iShares Semiconductor ETF has delivered a compound annual return of 10.4% since its establishment in 2001, outperforming the average annual gain of 7.9% in the S&P 500 over the same period. But the ETF has delivered an accelerated annual return of 20.9% over the past decade, driven by the accelerating adoption of technologies like cloud computing and AI.
If the iShares ETF continues to deliver annual gains of 20.9%, it could turn a $250,000 investment into over $1.6 million in the next decade. It won't be easy, but if AI infrastructure spending grows to $1 trillion per year by 2028, as Jensen Huang expects, it certainly isn't out of the question.
However, even if the ETF averages an annual gain of 15.6% over the next 10 years, that would be enough to turn $250,000 into $1 million:
|
Starting Balance |
Compound Annual Return |
Balance in 10 Years |
|---|---|---|
|
$250,000 |
10.4% |
$672,404 |
|
$250,000 |
15.6% (midpoint) |
$1,065,413 |
|
$250,000 |
20.9% |
$1,668,026 |
Calculations by author.
Last year, Huang said data center operators could earn $5 over four years for every $1 they spend on Nvidia's AI chips and infrastructure by renting the computing capacity to AI developers. If those economics are accurate, data center operators like Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet are likely to continue investing heavily in new infrastructure long into the future.
Plus, every new generation of AI models typically requires even more computing capacity than the last, so it's possible that Huang's spending forecasts will prove to be conservative when we look back on this moment. In any case, the iShares ETF could be a great addition to a diversified portfolio.
Before you buy stock in iShares Trust - iShares Semiconductor ETF, 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 iShares Trust - iShares Semiconductor ETF 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 $669,517!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $868,615!*
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*Stock Advisor returns as of June 2, 2025
Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Anthony Di Pizio has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, Texas Instruments, and iShares Trust-iShares Semiconductor ETF. The Motley Fool recommends Broadcom and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Seagate has announced a new 4TB version of its storage expansion card for the Xbox Series X and S consoles. It’s the first time the company has introduced a new capacity since launching 2TB and 512GB versions of the expansion card in late 2021.
The 4TB card is available starting today through Seagate’s online store and Best Buy for $499.99, but is discounted to $429.99 as part of a limited-time launch promotion. For comparison, the Xbox Series S starts at $379.99, while the Xbox Series X starts at $599.99.
But, the added storage may be required by folks with large libraries of games. Depending on the options and expansions you install, games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Microsoft Flight Simulator can easily gobble up hundreds of gigs of storage each. You can increase the Xbox’s storage capacity using an external drive connected over USB, but to play games directly from an SSD, without having to move files around, requires the storage expansion cards.
You may want to wait for a price drop, though. The 2TB version of the card was originally priced at $399.99, but is now listed on Seagate’s online store for $249.99, with a current promotion bringing it down to $219.99.
For nearly three years, Seagate was the only company offering expandable storage cards for the Xbox Series X and S, but in mid-2023 Western Digital introduced its own. Its current pricing and capacities are comparable to Seagate’s offerings. Western Digital hasn’t yet introduced a 4TB option.
Although the added competition did help bring the price of Seagate’s expansion cards down, they’re still more expensive than storage expansions for the PlayStation 5, which allows you to use any SSD as long as it meets certain performance requirements. Not only does Western Digital already sell a PS5-compatible 4TB SSD for $339.99, it also offers an 8TB option, although that will set you back a steep $699.99.
Capping off a very busy week in the world of gaming is Microsoft with its annual Xbox Games Showcase, providing “a look at brand-new games and updates from across our first-party studios and our incredible partners across the globe.” It was followed by a segment focused entirely on the sci-fi RPG The Outer Worlds 2.
The big reveal was portable gaming news, as Microsoft announced the Xbox app, Game Bar, and Windows OS updates that will arrive on two new ROG Xbox Ally handhelds. They’ll have a full-screen Xbox experience that’s supposed to make Windows more friendly to handhelds, and help them compete with the Steam Deck and other SteamOS-powered devices.
News for specific game titles included Gears of War: E-Day, Persona 4 Revival, and a surprise drop of Final Fantasy XVI on Xbox.
Read on below to find out about everything announced during the Xbox Games Showcase 2025.
You can play the latest entry in the Final Fantasy series, Final Fantasy XVI, on Xbox right now. Shadow dropped during today’s Xbox Games Showcase, players will be able to experience FFXVI’s slick-ass kaiju monster battles, incredible voice acting, and ho-hum story (because, hey, you can’t expect Square Enix to be perfect at everything). In addition to the base game, players will also get access to FFXVI’s two story DLCs The Rising Tide and Echoes of the Fallen which adds more story and a new Eikon (the game’s version of summons) Leviathan.
But that’s not all as the partnership between Xbox and Square Enix continues apace. Last year, Xbox brought the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV to the system. Later it was rumored, due to Square Enix’s stated desire to expand their games beyond the PlayStation ecosystem, that it would bring the Final Fantasy VII remake project to Xbox as well. That rumor has been proven true. The absurdly titled Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, which is the first entry in the FF7 reimagination project combined with the Yuffie-centric DLC, is coming to Xbox this winter.
Psychonauts developer Double Fine just announced a new game — and you’ll be able to play it soon. Keeper, a game where you play as a walking lighthouse with a seabird as a buddy, is launching on October 17th, 2025 on Xbox and PC.
Here’s a description from an Xbox Wire post about what you can expect from the game:
It has stood alone for countless years, but now the Lighthouse finds companionship in a curious and spirited seabird, who encounters the Lighthouse while seeking refuge from a creeping malevolent presence spreading throughout the isle. The Lighthouse discovers that its bright beam of light is able to affect the flora and fauna, and even seems to ward off the withering tendrils spreading throughout the world around it.
Meanwhile the bird proves to be a useful and dextrous ally, able to interact with strange and ancient mechanisms. Together, these two unlikely friends set off together on an epic adventure, an odyssey of mystifying metamorphosis, and a journey that will take them into realms beyond understanding.
The art in the trailer is absolutely gorgeous, and it looks like the world will be a beautiful one to explore. The game will be a “story told without words” and is a “strange, otherworldly tale,” according to the post. I’m looking forward to it.
Microsoft first revealed Gears of War: E-Day during its Xbox Games Showcase last year, and at today’s showcase it’s now putting a 2026 release window on the latest entry in the sci-fi shooter series. Developed by The Coalition, E-Day will release in a year that marks 20 years since the original Gears of War game debuted on the Xbox 360, and 25 years of Xbox.
E-Day is set 14 years before the first Gears game, and “tells the story of the first Locust emergence on Sera.” It’s being billed as an origin story, and once again stars Marcus Fenix. E-Day is the first title in the series since Gears 5 debuted in 2019.
Last month, Microsoft also announced a Gears of War remaster that also brings the franchise to PlayStation for the first time. Gears of War: Reloaded is launching on August 26th for Xbox Series X / S, PlayStation, and PC for $39.99. The remaster features 4K resolution, 120fps support, and cross-progression and cross-play for all platforms. Gears of War: Reloaded will also have two-player co-op for the campaign and 8-player multiplayer.
Xbox chief Phil Spencer confirmed the E-Day release window during the Xbox Games Showcase earlier today, and also revealed “the next Forza” is coming in 2026 too, as well as “the return of a classic that’s been with us since the beginning.” That classic may well be the Halo CE remaster I wrote about last year.
© Microsoft
Back in March, we outlined six features we wanted to see on what was then just a rumored Xbox-branded, Windows-powered handheld gaming device. Today, Microsoft's announcement of the Asus ROG Xbox Ally hardware line looks like it fulfills almost all of our wishes for Microsoft's biggest foray into portable gaming yet.
The Windows-11-powered Xbox Ally devices promise access to "all of the games available on Windows," including "games from Xbox, Game Pass, Battle.net, and other leading PC storefronts [read: Steam, Epic Games Store, Ubisoft Connect, etc]." But instead of having to install and boot up those games through the stock Windows interface, as you often do on handhelds like the original ROG Ally line, all these games will be available through what Microsoft is calling an "aggregated gaming library."
Asus and Microsoft are stressing how that integrated experience can be used with games across multiple different Windows-based launchers, promising "access to games you can't get elsewhere." That could be seen as a subtle dig at SteamOS-powered devices like the Steam Deck, which can have significant trouble with certain titles that don't play well with Steam and/or Linux for one reason or another. Microsoft also highlights how support apps like Discord, Twitch, and downloadable game mods will also be directly available via the Xbox Ally's Windows backbone.
As you might imagine, a steady stream of cars to review comes and goes from my parking spot. Some weeks, they stand out, like the bright green Aston Martin, the murdered-out Bentley, or the VW ID. Buzz you can read about soon; these cars usually spark conversations with neighbors, particularly those who don't know why there's a different vehicle in that spot each week.
At other times, the vehicles are more anonymous, and I'm not sure this ADX sparked any community discussions. Compact crossovers are a popular breed and blend into the background—particularly when they're painted an unobtrusive shade.
Which is not to say the ADX is not handsome; the Urban Gray Pearl paint looked good even in the near-constant rain (which explains the Acura-supplied images rather than my own) that coincided with our time with the tester. And from the driver's seat, the view down the hood, along those creases, is a lot more interesting than most comparable crossovers, considering the ADX's $35,000 starting price.
© Acura
Investors can often position themselves for success in the stock market by focusing on industry leaders that are consistently reporting strong revenue growth. These are usually companies that are benefiting from major tailwinds and have a long runway of growth in their respective industries.
The following growth stocks fit that profile, and despite recently hitting new highs, they still offer excellent long-term return potential.
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 »
Image source: Getty Images.
Roblox (NYSE: RBLX) is a popular interactive gaming platform that has seen its stock take off in 2025. Shares are up nearly 60% year to date, supported by strong financial results. Management is aiming to capture 10% of video game spending, and its track record of growth indicates the company is well on its way.
Video games are one of the largest, if not the largest, entertainment markets. Newzoo estimates annual spending across all gaming platforms is $180 billion, so Roblox believes it can reach $18 billion in annual revenue, up from its trailing-12-month revenue of $3.8 billion. In the first quarter, daily active users increased 26% year over year to 97.8 million. Revenue was up 29% to $1.0 billion. This momentum points to a big opportunity.
Roblox has a unique business model where the company invests in technology and services to support revenue growth, but its user community creates the games and other experiences on its platform. Roblox is on pace to pay out $1 billion in compensation to content creators this year, but it's still seeing healthy increases for key financial metrics like free cash flow. In the first quarter, free cash flow more than doubled over the year-ago quarter and reached $876 million on a trailing-12-month basis.
Total hours spent on the platform continue to position Roblox for growing monetization opportunities over the long term. Players logged 21.7 billion hours last quarter, up 30% year over year. Meanwhile, management is working to grow the advertising business, where it has a partnership with Alphabet's Google to offer video ads through the platform. Ads could drive even more engagement and revenue for the company too. For example, Roblox could offer players free access to premium experiences that are usually locked behind a paywall if they watch an ad.
In the video game industry, Roblox is one of the best picks for investors. It has a large and growing user base, engaging experiences, improving ad-tech capabilities, and growing free cash flow. This combination should make the stock a rewarding investment over the next decade and beyond.
MercadoLibre (NASDAQ: MELI) is a fast-growing fintech and e-commerce company operating in Latin America. The company is helping bring digital financial services to millions of people in the region that don't have access to basic services like bank accounts.
The company's revenue has grown from $652 million in 2015 to $22 billion on a trailing-12-month basis. That growth has fueled the stock's 1,700% gain over the last 10 years. Yet, even after surging to a new high this year, the stock is trading at a reasonable valuation (more on this later).
MercadoLibre offers a complete ecosystem of financial and e-commerce services. It generates revenue from its online marketplace, which has 67 million unique active buyers, in addition to advertising services, shipping, lending, payments, and credit. A new credit card offering is scaling quickly and could become a valuable tool to attract users to the online marketplace. Its credit portfolio grew 75% year over year last quarter.
What's clear is that MercadoLibre is solidifying itself as the leading option for key services in a region with 650 million people. The long-term opportunity is massive. Revenue grew 64% year over year in Q1 on a currency-neutral basis. The consistency of its growth over the last decade is remarkable and highlights just how much upside exists for the business.
The stock's price-to-sales ratio is currently at the lower end of its historical range. As recently as five years ago, MercadoLibre traded consistently above 15 times trailing revenue. But as of this writing, investors can buy shares at less than 6 times sales. At the rate MercadoLibre is still growing, this reasonable price point sets the stage for excellent long-term returns.
Before you buy stock in Roblox, 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 Roblox 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 $669,517!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $868,615!*
Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 792% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 173% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.
*Stock Advisor returns as of June 2, 2025
Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. John Ballard has positions in MercadoLibre. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, MercadoLibre, and Roblox. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
At first glance, Roku (NASDAQ: ROKU) looks like a terrible investment. Earnings are negative. Sales are rising, but much more slowly than they were four years ago. The stock trades at an unaffordable valuation of 125 times forward earnings estimates. After a long-forgotten price spike in the pandemic lockdown era, Roku's stock fell hard and then traded sideways over the last three years.
But if you look a bit closer, you should see a healthy long-term growth story in play. Roku targets a huge global market, following in the footsteps of proven winners, and the stock doesn't appear expensive at all from other perspectives.
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 »
It's actually one of my favorite stocks to buy in 2025, and Roku should be a helpful addition to long-term portfolios.
Let me deconstruct the scary qualities I mentioned above.
Roku's red-ink earnings are at least partly a voluntary choice. The company treats its streaming hardware as a marketing tool, selling Roku sticks and TV sets below the manufacturing and distribution costs. This user-growth tactic is especially unprofitable in Roku's highest-volume sales periods. The holiday quarter of 2024, for example, nearly quadrupled the devices segment's negative gross margin from 7.6% in the third quarter to 28.6% in the fourth.
In other words, Roku is running its business with unprofitable profit margins to maximize its market reach and user growth. Furthermore, I'm talking about generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), which is the standard accounting method used for calculating taxes. Roku often posts negative GAAP earnings that result in tax refunds rather than expenses.
At the same time, free cash flows tend to land on the positive side with modest cash profits. That's just efficient accounting powered by stock-based compensation and amortization of Roku's media-streaming content library.
Roku's year-over-year sales growth has averaged 14.7% over the last two years. That's a sharp retreat from 40.9% in the three years before that. But don't forget that the extreme growth was driven by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lots of people turned to digital media during the lockdown period, resulting in a unique business spike for companies like Roku and Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX). The pandemic also happened to take place just months after Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) launched the Disney+ streaming service, inspiring a torrent of copycat service launches. Long story short, there may never be a media market like the one in 2020-2021 again. Holding on to nearly half of that nitro-boosted growth rate in recent years is actually really good.
Let me point back to the voluntary GAAP losses. Roku isn't trying to generate huge taxable profits at this time, which makes price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios largely unusable. Even the forward-looking version of this common metric relies on Roku's guidance targets filtered through Wall Street's analysis. If anything, the analyst community's projections are more optimistic than Roku's official targets. Management expects a $30 million GAAP loss in fiscal year 2025, which would work out to another "not applicable" P/E ratio.
If you look at other valuation metrics, Roku starts to look like a bargain. Trading at 2.6 times trailing sales, the stock is comparable to slow-growth giants such as Caterpillar or Unilever. Roku also seems undervalued, if you base your analysis on its robust balance sheet, with a price-to-book ratio of 4.4 and a price-to-cash multiple of 4.9.
Image source: Getty Images.
I'll admit that Roku's stalled stock chart can be frustrating. Share prices are down 17% over the last three years, missing out on 44% growth in the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) market index. Roku's sales are up 45% over this period, while free cash flow rose by 66%. When will the big payoff come, rewarding patient shareholders for Roku's quiet success?
That's OK, though. Keeping stock prices low just gives investors more time to build those Roku positions. I have bought Roku more often than any other stock since the spring of 2022, and I might not be done adding shares yet. Whenever I have spare cash ready for investments, Roku pops up as a top idea. That remains true in June 2025. So, let the chart slouch lower. Affordable buy-in prices can set you up for tremendous long-term returns.
Before you buy stock in Roku, 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 Roku 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 $669,517!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $868,615!*
Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 792% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 173% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.
*Stock Advisor returns as of June 2, 2025
Anders Bylund has positions in Netflix, Roku, and Walt Disney. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Netflix, Roku, and Walt Disney. The Motley Fool recommends Unilever. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Shares of Viking Therapeutics (NASDAQ: VKTX), a mid-cap biotech, are down by 34% this year. This poor performance may suggest that recent company-specific developments have rendered the stock less attractive or that it is being affected by broader market issues. The latter is true, at least to some extent, but Viking Therapeutics' thesis has not changed significantly this year. The drugmaker remains attractive compared to most of its similarly sized peers. Here is why.
Viking Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotech. That means the company has no product on the market, generates no revenue, and is consistently unprofitable. Investors aren't too keen on buying shares of companies that fit this profile when broader equities are experiencing significant volatility due to potential macroeconomic issues. In fairness, that makes sense. Clinical-stage biotechs carry above-average risk. Their products may never see the light of day outside the clinic, and even when they do, many do not generate substantial revenue.
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 »
Image source: Getty Images.
However, Viking Therapeutics is a bit different. The company is developing medicines across several areas with high unmet needs. First, there is the drugmaker's work in the weight management space. The anti-obesity drug market has experienced significant growth in recent years. Yet, analysts continue to predict that the best is yet to come. Viking Therapeutics' leading candidate in this area, VK2735, is a dual GLP-1/GIP agonist. The only approved medicine of this kind on the market is Eli Lilly's Zepbound, an undisputed leader.
Being in the same class as Zepbound doesn't guarantee VK2735's success, but it's still worth pointing out that a similar mechanism of action that led to Zepbound's breakthrough and efficacy could also prove successful for Viking Therapeutics' crown jewel. And more importantly, the investigational medicine has produced better results than almost any other mid-stage candidate in weight management, outside of those being developed by Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. That's impressive for a mid-cap biotech, considering significantly larger drugmakers with far more resources are trying to dominate this market.
Viking Therapeutics' other mid-stage program, VK2809, performed well in patients with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), a disease with obesity as one of the main risk factors and whose prevalence is on the rise. However, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved just the first MASH medicine last year, although that will likely change soon.
The point, though, is that VK2809 could join a relatively young market in a few years and generate massive sales down the road. These two candidates set Viking Therapeutics apart from other clinical-stage biotech companies. It's also worth noting that Viking Therapeutics recently signed a multiyear manufacturing agreement with privately held CordenPharma for VK2735. Per the terms of the deal, CordenPharma will manufacture more than a billion oral formulations of the medicine annually, as well as over 100 million autoinjectors and another 100 million syringes per year.
Viking Therapeutics will make payments to CordenPharma, totaling $150 million through 2028. This deal highlights that Viking Therapeutics is already planning some post-commercial activity for its leading candidate. That's a great sign for investors.
Viking Therapeutics is developing other candidates, including another weight management product that is still in preclinical studies. Following a similar blueprint, this product is a dual agonist that mimics the action of not just one but two gut hormones: amylin, which helps regulate blood sugar, and calcitonin, which regulates calcium levels. There is slow progress on that front, but Viking Therapeutics' commitment to innovation is impressive for such a small biotech. Now, Viking Therapeutics' most advanced programs could fail in phase 3 studies. If that happens, especially with VK2735, the stock price is likely to plummet.
That's a significant risk to consider. That's why the stock is probably not suitable for risk-averse investors. However, those who are comfortable with volatility should strongly consider initiating a small position in the stock. If the business goes under, which isn't that rare for smaller biotech companies, your losses will be relatively small so long as the company makes a tiny portion of your overall portfolio. But there is significant upside potential that those who invest in Viking Therapeutics today could enjoy over the long run.
Before you buy stock in Viking Therapeutics, 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 Viking Therapeutics 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 $669,517!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $868,615!*
Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 792% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 171% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.
*Stock Advisor returns as of June 2, 2025
Prosper Junior Bakiny has positions in Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Viking Therapeutics. The Motley Fool recommends Novo Nordisk and Viking Therapeutics. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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