What stocks should I buy now for long term

Screening Filters

1. Market Cap (min $10,000,000,000)

   • Purpose: Focus on larger, more established companies.
   • Rationale:
     • A minimum market cap of $10B steers you away from small and mid caps, which can be more volatile and risky.
     • For long-term investing, bigger companies tend to have more diversified revenue streams, stronger balance sheets, and better access to capital—characteristics that support compounding over many years.

2. Market Cap Category: mega, large

   • Purpose: Explicitly target blue-chip and near–blue-chip names.
   • Rationale:
     • “Mega” and “large” caps generally include industry leaders or strong contenders.
     • These companies often have durable competitive advantages, established brands, and global operations, which aligns with a long-term “buy and hold” mindset in the U.S. market.

3. Listing Exchange: XNYS (NYSE), XNAS (NASDAQ)

   • Purpose: Limit results to major U.S. exchanges.
   • Rationale:
     • Your question is explicitly about the US market, so restricting to NYSE and NASDAQ ensures all results are U.S.-listed stocks.
     • These exchanges have high liquidity, tighter spreads, and stronger disclosure/oversight standards compared with smaller exchanges or OTC markets.

4. Index Component: GSPC (S&P 500), NDX (Nasdaq 100)

   • Purpose: Ensure stocks are part of major, well-followed indices.
   • Rationale:
     • S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 membership is a strong quality screen: companies must meet size, liquidity, and financial criteria.
     • Index components tend to have:
       • Extensive analyst coverage
       • High trading volume (easy to enter/exit positions)
       • Inclusion in index funds and ETFs, supporting stable long-term demand for the shares
     • For long-term investors, this reduces the chance of ending up in obscure or structurally weak companies.

5. Net Margin (min 8%)

   • Purpose: Filter for consistently profitable businesses with decent margins.
   • Rationale:
     • A net margin ≥ 8% is a sign the company is not just growing top-line but also converting revenue into real earnings.
     • Profitability is critical for long-term compounding and for a company’s ability to reinvest in growth, pay dividends, or buy back shares.
     • It also helps weed out highly speculative or structurally unprofitable businesses.

6. Revenue 5-Year CAGR (min 8%)

   • Purpose: Ensure companies are not only stable but also growing meaningfully.
   • Rationale:
     • A revenue compound annual growth rate of at least 8% over five years targets businesses growing faster than inflation and often faster than GDP.
     • For long-term investors, you generally want growth plus quality, not just stability. This filter focuses on companies with demonstrated multi-year expansion rather than one-off spikes.

7. P/E (TTM) between 10 and 35

   • Purpose: Find reasonably valued stocks—neither distressed nor extremely expensive.
   • Rationale:
     • Lower bound (10): Helps avoid ultra-low P/E “value traps,” where the low multiple may reflect serious structural issues or earnings that are about to decline.
     • Upper bound (35): Excludes the most richly priced, speculative growth names where much of the future success might already be priced in, which can be risky for long-term investors if expectations reset.
     • This range is a practical “growth at a reasonable price” (GARP) type filter, aiming for a balance between quality, growth, and valuation.

Why Results Match Your Long-Term US Investment Goal

• You asked for U.S. stocks to buy now for long-term investment. These filters jointly:
  • Restrict to large, established U.S.-listed companies (market cap, index, exchange filters).
  • Emphasize quality and durability through consistent profitability (net margin) and membership in major indices.
  • Require solid historical growth (revenue 5yr CAGR), which supports long-term compounding.
  • Enforce valuation discipline (P/E range), avoiding both risky “too cheap” names and overly speculative “story stocks.”

Together, the screen is essentially looking for profitable, growing, large-cap U.S. companies in major indices, trading at reasonable valuations—a profile that aligns well with a long-term, buy-and-hold investment approach in the U.S. market.