The S&P 500 is full of world-class companies that have been brilliant long-term investments. In this index, it’s not hard to find companies that have returned 20% or more per year for investors over the last decade.
Here, I’m going to highlight two high-quality S&P 500 companies I’ve been building positions in recently and plan to hold for the long term. These stocks have been excellent investments lately and I’m backing them to boost my retirement portfolio significantly over the next decade.
A global transportation powerhouse
First up, we have Uber (NYSE: UBER). It’s the world’s largest rideshare and food delivery company.
I see a lot of growth potential here as this is a very scalable business. Over the next decade, I expect Uber to get much bigger as it launches in new cities and offers new services (today it offers all kinds of services including courier services and plane/train/boat bookings).
Note that year-on-year revenue growth for the third quarter of 2025 was 20%. So, the company is growing at a rapid clip today.
One thing that excites me here is the potential for self-driving taxis. Currently, Uber has partnerships with over 10 autonomous driving companies and last month, it launched a partnership with Nvidia to accelerate the development of autonomous taxis.
Now, some people believe that Tesla, and its self-driving tech, is a risk here. I’m not convinced it is though as I reckon there’s room for lots of companies in this space.
I think a bigger threat is AI-related job losses and the impact on consumer spending. If a ton of people lose their jobs in the years ahead, the travel industry is likely to be impacted so this is an issue I’ll be monitoring.
Right now, however, the outlook is attractive in my view. Trading on a forward-looking price-to-earnings (P/E) of around 25, I think this stock is worth a closer look.
A top player in cybersecurity
The other stock I want to highlight is CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD). It’s generally regarded as the industry leader in the cybersecurity space.
Over the next decade, I expect the cybersecurity industry to grow dramatically. Today, no business can afford to take this area of technology lightly – the risks are simply too high (like going out of business).
I see CrowdStrike as well positioned to benefit from the industry growth. It offers a comprehensive, cloud-native platform known as Falcon, which is designed to provide powerful protection to businesses.
It’s worth noting that like Uber, CrowdStrike just launched a partnership with Nvidia. Together the companies will be working to develop always-on AI agents for cybersecurity that can protect data centres.
This stock has always been expensive (its P/E ratio is about 150 today). But that hasn’t stopped it delivering brilliant returns over the long term.
Over the last year, it’s up about 80%. Over the last five, it’s up about 285% (with lots of volatility along the way).
The thing is, the company is still pretty small today (relative to other US tech companies). Currently, its market cap is only around $140bn.
I think it can get much bigger and is worth considering as a long-term investment. Competition from rivals and operational setbacks are risks, but over the next five-to-10 years, I think this stock will do well.
