Prediction: These 2 Warren Buffett Stocks Could Beat the Market in the Next Decade

Key Points

• Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway owns shares of Amazon and Visa.

• Amazon's AI work should help boost its revenue and profits in the next decade.

• Visa will continue riding the cash displacement phenomenon through 2035.

• 10 stocks we like better than Amazon ›

Warren Buffett will step down from his role as the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of the year. Although his legendary decade-long tenure is coming to an end, investors can still learn a great deal by studying the man's investing philosophy and examining the conglomerate's famous portfolio, which contains many excellent buy-and-hold options.

Two of the top picks among Berkshire Hathaway's 41 holdings are Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Visa (NYSE: V). These market leaders have the potential to deliver superior returns over the next decade.

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 is why.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

1. Amazon

Amazon is a highly profitable company with U.S. and international operations in e-commerce, grocery shopping, video and music streaming, advertising, and cloud computing. However, outside of its cloud operations, the company's business is relatively low-margin.

In the second quarter, Amazon's North America and international segments had operating margins of 7.5% and 4.1%, respectively. Here's the good news: In the next decade, e-commerce should continue expanding internationally, granting significant growth prospects to these parts of Amazon's business.

In the meantime, the company will seek to improve its margins by implementing artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives across its operations. The company has deployed more than a million industrial robots in its warehouses to that end. Amazon's North America and international segments generate hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenue. Even modest margin improvements annually over the long run could have a meaningful impact on the company's bottom line.

Then there is Amazon's fast-growing cloud unit. It is responsible for most of the company's operating and net income, thanks to its much juicier margins. With a suite of AI services whose demand continues to grow, Amazon Web Services should maintain this momentum for the foreseeable future. Lastly, some of Amazon's newer initiatives are expected to make a meaningful impact in the next decade as well.

Consider the company's Amazon Pharmacy. The U.S. prescription drug market is expected to be worth approximately $374 billion in revenue this year. Amazon boasts 180 million Prime members in the U.S. and offers a range of perks, including fast and free shipping, allowing patients to avoid the long lines at pharmacies. If the company can scale this business and the rest of its healthcare operations, it could have a meaningful impact on its results by 2035.

Even without that, though, Amazon's prospects for the next decade look highly attractive. Investors can safely add shares of the e-commerce specialist and hold onto them for a long time.

2. Visa

Visa owns one of the world's leading global payment networks. The company facilitates credit and debit card transactions, earning a fee for each. So, every time anyone swipes or taps a card branded with Visa's logo, the company pockets a percentage of the transaction amount. That's quite the business model.

To get an idea of the scale of Visa's business, consider that there are about 5 billion of its branded cards in circulation across some 200 countries, and the company supports hundreds of billions of transactions annually and trillions in total payment volume.

The result: Visa generates consistent revenue and profits, and it has for the past decade. The company also boasts a high-margin business. Visa's network infrastructure is already in place and can support its transaction volume with minimal additional cost.

The financial specialist also avoids the headaches associated with credit risk, as it does not issue the credit card itself. This also means it doesn't receive money from interest. Still, Visa's fee-based, capital-light model yields gross and net margins of around 80% and 50%, respectively, which is exceptional for a company of its size.

Although Visa has already achieved tremendous success, there is still plenty of room to grow, as the world increasingly requires digital (non-cash or check) methods of payment. Besides the fact that cash is clunky and less convenient to carry in high amounts than a credit card, the growth of e-commerce is also playing a role in this, since cash is an option in physical retail stores, but digital methods of payment are practically mandatory on e-commerce platforms.

Visa still estimates there's trillions worth of cash and check transactions to bring into its ecosystem. The company should ride that wave in the next decade and deliver excellent returns along the way.

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

Before you buy stock in Amazon, 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 Amazon 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 $661,694!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,082,963!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 1,067% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 189% 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 September 15, 2025

Prosper Junior Bakiny has positions in Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and Visa. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.