Sometimes, the best companies aren’t flashy growth businesses. Instead, they are the easy-to-understand companies that happen to be very good at what they do. For instance, look at what United Parcel Service has accomplished.

UPS has thrived during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic as even more people have ordered packages online rather than shopping in person. It has sustained that momentum during 2021 as economies have reopened around the globe, leaning into the demand for healthcare package deliveries and helping to fuel the continuing growth of the e-commerce industry. Here are just a few reasons why UPS has continued to do well and why its stock is an excellent buy.

1. UPS has continued to deliver record numbers

At the time, 2020 was UPS’ best year yet. And its best ever quarter was the last three months of the year as it has thrived during the holidays. UPS has also addressed vaccine deliveries, capping 2021 off by delivering about 1.1 billion doses of the vaccine in total.

Established businesses tend to have a hard time following their record performances. Just look at Clorox’s struggles in beating its record year. However, UPS has risen to the challenge by growing its revenue by 11.5% during 2021 compared to the year before. It posted a free cash flow of $10.9 billion, more than twice what it had earned during 2020, booking a whole year operating margin of about 13.2% (the highest it has had in 15 years), and collecting $12.13 in diluted earnings per share.

The numbers really speak for themselves. But what has stood out is that UPS did this in a business environment that was easy to blame the supply chain shortages, the ongoing pandemic, inflation, labor shortages, rising interest rates. UPS didn’t shy away from any of these challenges. But it has delivered by beating one record year with another record year.

2. UPS has pricing power

UPS is a top player in a capital-intensive industry with a limited amount of competitors. This gives it the power to raise prices with little to no impact on the demand. During its third quarter of 2021 earnings call, UPS had announced a 5.9% general U.S. increased rate for 2022 to offset the higher costs. Similarly, its biggest competitor, FedEx, announced a 5.9% increase in its shipping rates for FedEx Express, FedEx Home Delivery and FedEx Ground, which went has went into effect January 3, 2022. In Dec. 2021, the U.S. Postal Service announced a 3.1% increased rate for most Priority Mail Express and Priority Mail services. Given that the whole industry is increasing prices, customers have little to no choice but to accept the higher costs.

3. UPS is still an inexpensive stock

UPS’ business is going very well and should continue to thrive even with the challenging climate of business. The cherry on top was the low valuation for its stock. Although UPS stock hit its new all-time high, it still closed the week out with a price-to-earnings ratio of around 18.5. Additionally, UPS fulfilled its promise of paying half of its adjusted EPS to its shareholders through a dividend. It has earned $12.13 in adjusted EPS during 2021, and just increased its 2022 dividend to $1.52 per quarter per share, or $6.08 per year per share, for a yield of 2.6%.

Today has been a somewhat rocky day for both cryptocurrency and equity investors. The overall cryptocurrency market has fallen by 0.7% over the last 24 hours, led by some alt coins like Solana, which saw a decrease of 7.3% during that same time frame.

Today’s big news that’s affecting Solana and a few of the other coins is the announced $320 million dollar hack of Wormhole. This hack is said to be the second-biggest cryptocurrency hack in crypto history, and the fact that the hack has had so much to do with the Solana network has some traders worried. Solana hit an intraday low of over 10% earlier in the morning after the news of the hack broke.

So what

Wormhole is one of the biggest bridges between the Solana network and other blockchains such as ETH, Terra, Polygon, Binance Smart Chain and Avalanche. This bridge has reportedly had over $1 billion in total value locked, and it has also been locked down, its portal is unavailable for the time being as developers are scanning the extent of the damage that has been done. For now, Wormhole has stated that it seems only Wrapped Ether has been affected by this hack, with the other coins unaffected.

Wormhole has since requested the return of the coins in exchange for what they call a “bug bounty” of $10 million, but there is no indication the hackers have returned the stolen wETH to Wormhole.

Now what

This hack has highlighted one of the main risks inherent in the crypto space. Malicious actors such as hackers could attack networks, causing headaches for investors, particularly given the lack of legal recourse they have at their disposal to recover their money.

The fact that the hackers were cable of “exploiting the Solana VAA verification and mint coins,” according to Wormhole, this news clearly has Solana investors worried today. Given the most recent network disruptions that Solana has seen, this might simply be one too many headwinds to have to deal with right now.

Solana is a coin I’m still bullish on over the long term, because of a number of fundamental characteristics that make this network unique from others that are out there. However, these headlines are most certainly bearish for the coin over the short term.

The harmony of Apple’s software, services and hardware all drove another quarterly record for Mac, iPhone and services. Apple has created one of the world’s greatest brands, which has not escaped the attention of popular investor Warren Buffett.

What makes the stock such a great investment is the management team’s discipline in allocating a huge mountain of cash to help reward its shareholders, while also plowing more money back into the heart of the company’s competitive advantage.

The value in Apple’s share repurchases

At the end of the quarter, Apple had a net cash position of around $80 billion on its balance sheets. But free cash flow over the past four quarters hit a staggering $101 billion. The company is returning a large amount of that excess cash to its shareholders — it has returned $14 billion in dividends over the past year. But traders should pay just as much attention to the company’s share repurchases, which are increasing shareholder returns significantly by shrinking the share count.

Over the past five years, Apple’s share repurchases have decreased the company’s avg. diluted shares outstanding by almost 20%. Apple had around 22 billion shares that were outstanding in year 2017. It finished year 2021 with about 16.86 billion. This means Apple’s shareholders who have held the same number of shares during that time have had their percentage of ownership rise proportionally as the total pie got smaller.

Warren Buffett has applauded Apple’s share repurchases in a letter last year to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. As of January 3, 2022, Berkshire owns 5.56% of Apple.

“The math of the repurchases grinds away very slowly but can be powerful with the right amount of time. The process provides a simple way for traders to own an ever-growing portion of exceptional companies,” says Warren Buffett.

Reinvesting in the core

Apple’s total revenue has increased by 11% year over year in Q1 of year 2022 (which ended December 25). While Apple is not producing breakthrough new products every three years like it was when it was under Steve Jobs, growing free cash flow is allowing the company to continue improving its existing services and products to drive record revenue.

There will most likely be more blockbuster hardware products released at some point in the future. After all, Apple has spent $23 billion on its research and development on a trailing 1-year basis. But CEO Tim Cook has explained how Apple is continuing to invest in bolstering its ecosystem through the intersection of software, services and hardware. As he put it, “That is where the magic really happens.”

It is the stickiness of Apple’s services and hardware that have led Buffett to initially invest $36 billion in Apple’s stock. The company’s growing cash flow means it could make its devices even stickier.

As Warren Buffett noted in his letter, Apple is a great business that is worth holding for the long term.

Now, investors are watching for the next Solana. This means a cryptocurrency that will gain in developers, general use, and value. This crypto that could follow in Solana’s footsteps is Algorand. It increased 416% last year. And there was an increase in developers on the platform to about 200 from more than 50 a year earlier, According to the Electric Capital data. Algorand is really starting to speed up. I think it could become as popular as Solana. Read on to find out why.

New validation methods

Solana and Algorand have one main point in common. Both of them offer a new way of validating transactions. Proof of history is used by Solana. It timestamps blocks of data, and this makes the  validation process more efficient. Proof of stake is utilized by a lot of blockchains. This gives validation power to people according to their holdings. But, pure proof of stake is used by Algorand. This means validation power is given to any stakeholder randomly.

Algorand’s system also makes the validation process more effective. And it is important that it favors decentralization and security. Pure proof of stake means the responsibilities of validation will not always be on the same group of high stakeholders.

Another plus for Algorand is a two-layer structure — that is because it increases transaction speed and reduces congestion. The first layer is the place for the creation of tokens and smart simple contracts. The 2nd layer is used for the making of decentralized applications and complex smart contracts.

Algorand takes care of about 1,200 transactions per second. The next goal is to get up to around 3,000 per second. Algorand is wanting to eventually get it up to 45,000 transactions per second. And transactions are completed instantly.

Earning huge returns requires some vision; traders need to assess which industries might dominate the future, and then purchase stocks that are most likely to benefit from those trends.  And in this instance, it is possible that the metaverse and electric vehicles might be the top transformative tech of the next twenty years.

Here are two top stocks that are leading the charge in those industries, and they might be the biggest businesses in the world by 2040.

1. The case for Meta Platforms

Meta Platforms, which was formally known as Facebook, is a social media pioneer. The global population is currently around 7.9 billion people, and 2.9 billion of those people are using one of Meta’s platforms every month, whether it is Instagram, Facebook, or WhatsApp. But despite the overwhelming success it has had in the screen-based social media space, the business envisions a future that is slightly different for itself.

Meta rebranded itself in last year to reflect its new vision for the metaverse. This virtual-reality world provides so many diverse opportunities that its influence on businesses might be as significant as the internet has been. Meta Platforms’ users will exist as avatars of themselves, with the ability to hold an inventory of digital goods and teleport to other experiences. That is where the financial rewards could be, as the virtual world might sustain its very own economy.

Some estimates predict the metaverse might be an $800 billion opportunity by year 2024, but the kicker is its 12.4% compound yearly growth rate. It implies that by year 2040, assuming the growth rate remains constant, the metaverse might be worth $5.1 trillion each year to businesses like Meta Platforms. Since the company is expected to produce $140 billion in revenue this year, the potential upside by 2040 might therefore be enormous.

2. The case for Tesla

Data indicates that electric vehicles represented 4.2% of total car sales around the world during 2021, up from 2.5% in 2019. But they might skyrocket to 25% of total sales by year 2035, and 60% of total sales by year 2050.

That is great news for electric vehicle leader Tesla because it means its market will increase at least fivefold by year 2040, with plenty of upside potential. It produced over 930,000 cars last year and produced $47 billion in revenue, so this quickly expanding market opportunity might see the company remain one of the biggest in the world.

But the main difference between Tesla and other vehicle makers is its gross profit margin, which was at 25.3% for last year. By comparison, Ford’s gross margin is around 14%, and that supports the idea that Tesla is closer to a tech company than just a car maker, hence its premium stock valuation compared to that of Ford.

Its strong financial performance aside, Tesla is the top future-tech organization, and although it is already the sixth-biggest company in the world by market capitalization, it might have a clear view of first place by 2040.

Exchange-traded funds could be a great option for many investors, as they are investments that are low-maintenance. Each ETF might contain hundreds or even thousands of stocks, making portfolio that is instantly diversified, and the only thing you need to do is invest often.

While there are numerous ETFs to pick from, there is one type of fund, specifically, that might help you accumulate over $100,000 with very little effort being put in: S&P 500 ETFs.

Choosing the best ETF

S&P 500 ETFs can be a great investment for a lot of reasons. This kind of fund keeps track of the S&P 500 index. This means it does include the same stocks that are in the index, and it aims to replicate its performance.

The S&P 500 has stocks from 500 of the strongest and largest corporations in the United States, and it has earned positive avg. returns for decades.

Although the index has experienced short-term volatility, it has seen a recovery after every crash it has ever experienced. Historically, it has also earned an avg. rate of return of about 10% each year.

Your portfolio would experience downturns that wouldn’t last long if you were to invest in an S&P 500 ETF. Over time, you are almost guaranteed to have positive average returns.

How much could you earn by investing in an S&P 500 ETF?

The best part about trading the stock market is that it doesn’t require a large amount of money to get started investing. By investing a small amount each month, you could potentially accumulate thousands of dollars with time.

Let’s say you invested $1,000 right now. Let us also say you invested that $1,000 in an S&P 500 ETF that is earning an average 10% yearly return.

To earn the maximum profit in the stock market, it is best to invest often and give your investments time to grow.

In this scenario, let’s say that you are investing $150 each month in addition to your starting $1,000 investment. Assuming your investments get a 10% average yearly return, you would have about $110,000 after 20 years.

If you would like to earn even more, you could either increase your monthly investments or keep investing for longer durations.

For example, if you invested $300 each month each month, you would end up with about $213,000 after just 20 years. Or, if you were to continue investing $150 each month but for 35 years, you would have $516,000 in total.

Where to start

There are a lot of S&P 500 ETFs to pick from, and many of them are similar to one another. Their performances will be about the same because they are all tracking the same index.

Some of the more popular funds include the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF, Vanguard S&P 500 ETF and SPDR S&P 500 ETF. These funds have some of the smallest fees, making them much more affordable options to choose from for investors.

Regardless of which stock you invest your money, maintaining a longer-term outlook is the key. By investing the money, you can afford every month and giving your investment a lot of time to grow, you could earn more than you might think over time.