The Best Stocks to Invest $10,000 In Right Now

I try to keep my investments simple -- I love exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for the instant diversification; I don't fiddle around with options; and I believe in buying and holding funds for a long period of time, adding to my positions consistently over time and rebalancing a couple times a year.

But like many investors, I have my tried-and-true, ride-or-die companies that I highly value. These are companies that, despite the opinions of naysayers, form the anchor of my current portfolio, and they are the first names that come to mind when anyone asks me for investment advice.

If I were just starting out today, the first two stocks I would buy with a $10,000 nest egg would be Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) and Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ: PLTR). Both have done extremely well and have long runways to continued growth.

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1. Nvidia

Nvidia has been a massive winner over the last three years -- a $5,000 investment would be worth nearly $36,000 today. That's a gain of 621% for the chipmaker, whose graphics processing units (GPUs) are considered the gold standard for training and running artificial intelligence (AI)-powered programs and other high-level computing tasks.

But you're not too late to jump in on Nvidia stock. The company is generating massive revenue and earnings gains, with revenue in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026 (ending Jan. 25) of $68.1 billion, up 73% from a year ago. Net income was $39.5 billion, up 79% from last year, and earnings of $1.82 per share were a gain of 82% from a year ago.

Nvidia rolled out its new Blackwell chips last year, and its next-generation Rubin chips should be top sellers, too. "With Nvidia infrastructure in high demand, even Hopper and much of the six-year-old Ampere-based products are sold out in the cloud," CFO Colette Kress told analysts on the company's most recent earnings call.

2. Palantir Technologies

As dynamic as Nvidia's growth has been, Palantir's is even better. Shares are up 1,820% in the last three years, meaning a $5,000 investment in March 2023 would be worth more than $97,000 today.

Palantir uses its powerful software platforms for government, military, and civilian uses. For the government, Palantir improves logistics, provides insights into real-time battlefield situations, and even uses AI to help identify targets. For commercial clients, Palantir's systems help manage inventory and the supply chain and provide competitive analysis.

Tying it all together is the company's vaunted Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP), which leverages generative AI to let users submit detailed prompts to access Palantir's network and retrieve information. That helped Palantir's revenue jump by 70% in the fourth quarter to $1.40 billion. U.S. commercial revenue increased by 137% from a year ago to $507 million, and U.S. government revenue was up 66% on a year-over-year basis to $570 million.

How to invest

It would be a mistake to put your entire nest egg into just two companies, even if they are as dynamic and promising as Nvidia and Palantir. Investors should always maintain a diversified portfolio of stocks. But if you have $10,000 and are looking for some high-flying names with massive potential to add to your holdings, Nvidia and Palantir look like they are can't-miss opportunities.

Patrick Sanders has positions in Nvidia and Palantir Technologies. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Nvidia and Palantir Technologies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.