It’s the dream of every serious ISA investor to build a million-pound portfolio, and it’s possible, too.

Government figures shows the UK has 4,850 Stocks and Shares ISA millionaires, and their numbers will only grow over time.

That’s impressive, given that the ISA contribution limit is just £20,000 a year. But clearly, it can be done. The key ingredient is time. It won’t happen overnight.

Now here’s the twist. Once you’ve made your first million, building the second one is a much faster job.

Making big money from FTSE shares

Online investment platform AJ Bell has put a figure on how much an ISA investor needs to tuck away each month to make £1m within 25 years. The magic number is £1,433 a month. Or £17,196 a year.

This assumes an average annual compound total return of 6%. That’s actually below the average long-term return on the FTSE 100, which is just under 7%. If an investor managed that, they’d blast through the £1m mark by investing £1,250 a month over a 25-year stretch.

So what about that second million? If the investor continued to put away £1,433 a month, that would take them just 10 years — less than half the time. That’s because our investor is also getting growth on the £1m they’ve already accumulated.

Laith Khalaf, head of investment analysis at AJ Bell, said your first million is the hardest. “Hitting new milestones becomes increasingly easy because you have a huge tailwind from growth on the money you’ve already stashed away.”

Compound growth is a formidable force, but you have to be diligent and patient to harness its power, he added. “Clearly, the higher the return you achieve on your investments, the more powerful the effect.”

In an attempt to maximise my own returns, I buy individual stocks rather than investment funds. I don’t put any of my long-term savings into cash. While savings accounts offer security, equities should deliver a superior return over time.

Imperial Brands offers both income and growth

FTSE 100 tobacco maker Imperial Brands (LSE: IMB) has shown how well stocks can do, with a fair wind. Its shares are up a mighty 50% over the last year. Over five years, they’re up an impressive 75%.

The total return will be much higher, as investors will have had bountiful dividends on top. Today, the trailing yield is a generous 5.6%.

Smoking is a declining market but Imperial Brands has fought hard to maintain its share through strong brands and diversification into vaping and heated tobacco. The board has also focused on reducing debt and returning capital to shareholders, to maintain its financial stability.

Cigarette manufacturers remain under constant regulatory attack, while health concerns may eventually hit sales in emerging markets too. Plus there’s stiff competition in the next-gen market, from larger rivals such as Philip Morris and British American Tobacco. I don’t expect Imperial Brands shares to maintain recent stellar growth, but they’re worth considering for a long-term buy and hold.

Every company has risks, which is why I’ve built a balanced portfolio of around 20, so if one or two underperform others will hopefully make up for it.

Sadly, I can’t afford to put away £1,433 a month, so I won’t be making my million. But as AJ Bell figures show, it can be done. Given time.

Most investors have probably read that there are a growing number of Stocks and Shares ISA millionaires. But Hargreaves Lansdown revealed last year that the number of SIPP millionaires on its platform had jumped 20% in two years, from 3,166 to 3,794.

To be honest, this didn’t surprise me, as these DIY pensions have a few distinct advantages when it comes to building a sizeable investment portfolio. Here are three of them.

Government top-ups

Once someone pays into a SIPP, the government gives tax relief of 20%. Taxpayers on more than the basic rate can claim back more via self-assessment. 

For example, if I put £800 into my SIPP, the government automatically adds £200, bringing the total to £1,000. It normally appears a few weeks later. Because the government top-up is also invested, the portfolio can start to compound quickly, especially with regular contributions.  

Please note that tax treatment depends on the individual circumstances of each client and may be subject to change in future. The content in this article is provided for information purposes only. It is not intended to be, neither does it constitute, any form of tax advice. Readers are responsible for carrying out their own due diligence and for obtaining professional advice before making any investment decisions.

Uninterrupted compounding

It’s often said that investing is a marathon, not a sprint. This is true, and it plays into another key strength of the SIPP — investors can’t access money in it until the age of 55 (rising to 57 in 2028).

That has two immediate benefits. One is that it completely removes any temptation to take money out of the portfolio to spend on a new car, holiday, house renovation, dream wedding, emergency, whatever.

By contrast, a Stocks and Shares ISA is an easy-access platform. I can sell my shares at the push of a button, then have the cash sat in my bank account within days. But a SIPP prevents pot-dipping, assuming an investor is under 55. Of course, life does sometimes mean we need ready access to our savings, so the Stocks and Shares ISA has that advantage.

The second thing that’s excellent is its compounding process (interest being earned upon interest). Since I can’t touch the money early, it stays invested for longer. And the longer the compounding period, the bigger the final pot should be.

The first rule of compounding is to never interrupt it unnecessarily.

Charlie Munger

Fostering a long-term mentality

I’ve been investing in my own pension for a few years now. And because I intend to own the shares I have bought for potentially another two decades, my SIPP portfolio experiences far less churn than my ISA.

It also helps when I’ve to be patient with a particular investment. Take Shopify (NYSE: SHOP) for example. I’ve owned shares of the e-commerce enabler in my SIPP for many years.

However, I added to my holding in 2020 at what was (in hindsight) too high a value. In other words, I overpaid for my shares. Less than 18 months later, the stock had crashed 80% due to rising interest rates and my entire holding fell into the red.

It basically stayed that way for two years, as the chart below shows.

Yet during this period, the company continued growing its business and adding merchants to its platform. So instead of selling, I waited patiently for my position to recover (which it did last year) and I’m convinced the long duration nature of the SIPP fostered patience.

Shopify does face a lot of e-commerce competition, which is something I need to keep an eye on. But over 875m consumers — one in every six internet users — bought something from a Shopify merchant’s online store last year. That’s impressive, leaving me keen to remain a long-term shareholder.

Last month, I wrote about NIO (NYSE:NIO) and explained why I had an optimistic outlook on the beaten-down electric vehicle (EV) maker. At that point, I mentioned investors could consider it for their portfolios. Over the past month, the stock’s jumped, with some catalysts meaning it could maintain this momentum.

An unrealised profit

If an investor had parked £10k in NIO stock this time last month, they’d currently be up 6.22%. As a result, the easy maths means the £10,000 would be worth £10,622. This is a tidy return in just a few weeks.

By comparison, the S&P 500‘s fallen 0.45%. The FTSE 100‘s flat over the same period. So it goes to show that NIO’s outperformed the broader indices that some would use as a benchmark.

Another way to assess the return is to compare it to another EV-maker, for instance Tesla. Some might be surprised to know that Tesla shares are down 16% in the past month!

Of course, it’s essential to always look at the longer-term performance of stocks to get a clearer view. Despite the pop for NIO stock, over the past year it’s down 24%. This contrasts to the broader stock market both in the US and in the UK, which has rallied over this time fame.

Reasons for the jump

Part of the move higher can be explained by optimism ahead of the release of the latest financial results this week. This comes after delivery numbers for January saw strong growth versus the same period last year. NIO delivered 13,863 vehicles in January, representing an increase of 37.9% year on year. 

Even though the upcoming results are for 2024, data from January showed that for the calendar year, 221,970 vehicles were delivered, an increase of 38.7% from 2023. The business is clearly moving in the right direction. As it benefits from economies of scale, it should help to boost profit margins as revenue should increase at a faster pace than costs.

Another factor has been greater optimism around the Chinese economy recovering. NIO’s one of a few Chinese stocks investors can easily buy on the US stock market. Therefore, some trade it as a way to express their view on how China, in general, is performing.

Looking ahead

Even with the move over the past few weeks, the stock’s still heavily beaten down. Some will cite that we’ve seen short-term rallies that have ultimately fallen flat and not resulted in anything larger. This is true, and is a risk going forward.

The biggest concern I have for a long-term rally is the persistent loss-making nature of operations. Until this can be resolved, there are some investors that simply don’t want to consider it.

On balance, I do feel this is a stock for investors to consider buying, but understand why some will want to wait and see what happens with the results this week before making a decision.

Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) stock has been a staggering outperformer over many timeframes you’d care to mention. One year? Up 70%. Five years? Up more than 1,700%. And 10 years? More than 23,000% higher!

But in the past single, solitary month, the Nvidia share price is down 8.7%. This means a £10,000 investment made in late January is now worth about £9,125 on paper.

Why is the stock down?

Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs) have become absolutely integral to the generative artificial intelligence (AI) revolution. They process many tasks in parallel, thereby accelerating the training and inference of AI systems.

Tech firms across the world have been snapping up as many as they can lay their hands on. This massive demand, coupled with a struggle to manufacture them quickly enough, has seen the chipmaker’s pricing power, earnings, and margins go through the roof.

However, nearly a month ago, the share price bombed 17% in a day due to a little-known AI developer called DeepSeek. It released a free, open-source large language model (LLM) that it claims cost less than $6m to build with Nvidia’s less powerful chips.

This worried the market because Nvidia’s growth story is based on the assumption that cutting-edge LLMs will forever need the most powerful (and expensive) chips. DeepSeek’s arrival raised questions about the long-term sustainability of compute demand and the scale of capital investment in GPUs.

Is this anything to worry about?

Nvidia’s share price is only 10% off an all-time high. So investors don’t appear overly concerned about this issue. Indeed, CEO Jensen Huang reckons more efficient models could accelerate the adoption of AI, driving even more demand for GPUs. That’s certainly a plausible scenario.

The company reports Q4 earnings after the US market closes on Wednesday (26 February). It’s expected to post revenue of $38bn and earnings per share (EPS) of $0.84.

One thing investors will be keen to hear about is the firm’s latest flagship AI chip (Blackwell). This is now being shipped to major cloud-computing customers. Last we heard, demand for Blackwell chips was “insane” (according to Huang) and “staggering” (according to the CFO).

Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if Nvidia beats Q4 expectations and forecasts a strong Q1. However, it’s worth noting that the stock’s down 7% since the last (excellent) Q3 report in November. It’s started to drift, as if in search of a new catalyst.

Long-term thinking

Someone thinking about investing in Nvidia should be confident about rising demand for its GPUs over the long term. If that continues to be strong, then the stock’s worth considering because it currently trades on a reasonable forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 29. That then falls to just 24, based on forecasts for FY 2027 (which starts in February 2026).

But the issue for me is whether demand will start to finally wane as we head into 2026 and 2027. If so, the company’s sales and earnings growth could slow dramatically.

Moreover, three companies — widely thought to be Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet — made up 36% of Q3 revenue. So customer concentration is a risk, with Nvidia vulnerable to a lowering of AI spending from these tech giants. They’re all designing their own custom AI chips as well to reduce reliance on Nvidia’s.

Due to this uncertainty, I’m not going to invest today.

Nine hundred quid might not sound enough to start investing. But in today’s digital age, it’s easily enough to get the ball rolling.

A common mistake to avoid in the stock market though is to see it as a get-rich-quick mechanism. Indeed, as daft as it sounds, it’s arguably better to not even think about buying stocks at all.

Confused? Let me explain.

A small stake in a real business

When someone buys shares, say, of Diageo (LSE: DGE) they’re getting a stake in a real business. In Diageo’s case, that’s the global sales of alcohol brands such as Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker, Guinness, Tanqueray and Gordon’s gin. These labels are ubiquitous in bars, restaurants, supermarkets and homes across the UK and beyond.

In its last financial year, Diageo reported an operating profit of nearly $6bn on revenue of $20.2bn. That was slightly less than the year before because the global spirits market has been in a slump due to high inflation and weak consumer spending. Meanwhile, there’s a risk Gen Z is drinking far less.

Consequently, investors have been worried about its business prospects and the share price is down 41% in three years. As a shareholder myself, this hasn’t been a great time.

So what?

This goes to prove that it’s the performance of the underlying company that will decide how the stock performs over time. So investors need to weigh up the risks as well as the opportunities before putting money into a company.

They should ask themselves questions like, does the firm sell timeless products that people love? Does it do so at a healthy profit? In Diageo’s case, the answer is yes to both questions, despite the current weak sales growth.

The second thing investors need to understand is the price they’re paying to invest. Right now, Diageo stock has a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple of 16 for next year. In other words, it is trading at 16 times the forecast earnings for its next financial year.

That looks reasonable to me and suggests the share price could bounce back if this period proves to be a blip. That is, much of the bad news might already be priced into the stock’s valuation. Therefore, I think Diageo could be worth considering as an investment in March.

Invest in businesses, not stocks

My point here is that investment decisions require careful consideration, rather than simply buying a stock on a whim. There’s a real-world business behind every share — ideally a high-quality one. Each has its own strengths, risks, and carries a certain valuation.

Spreading risk

The struggling Diageo share price proves that even an established firm that owns world-class brands isn’t guaranteed to be an automatic winning investment. So I think it’s wise to build a diverse portfolio of shares. That way, a couple of rotten eggs won’t stink out the whole portfolio.

Perhaps that might involve investing £450 into two different stocks each month. After a year, that would result in a portfolio of 24 companies, which is a decent spread.

If someone invested £900 a month and managed to achieve an average 10% annual return, they would end up with a £1m portfolio after just 24 years. Certainly not a bad outcome from scratch!

The B&M European Value Retail (LSE:BME) share price didn’t have a good start to the week (24 February). It fell 8% during early Monday trading and continued a miserable run, which has seen it fall 49% over the past 12 months.

The most recent sell-off was prompted by a profits downgrade. The company now expects to report adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) of £605m-£625m for its current financial year, which ends in March (FY25).

The reduction was said to reflect “the current trading performance of the business, an uncertain economic outlook and the potential impact of exchange rate volatility on the valuation of stock and creditor balances”. Although currency movements are a non-cash item, they do impact on earnings.

The group also announced its chief executive will retire at the end of April.

In January, the company was forecasting earnings of £620m-£650m. And three months earlier, in November, it was predicting a range of £620m-£660m.

By comparison, it made £616m during its previous financial year. It now looks likely that the company will have failed to grow its profits in FY25.

Wider problems

B&M’s problems could be a bad sign for other FTSE retailers. When consumer confidence is low and incomes are squeezed — gross domestic product (GDP) per head has fallen for two successive quarters — I’d have thought the so-called discounters, like B&M, would do better.

But its ‘everyday low price‘ offer — and its ‘laser-focus‘ on keeping down costs for customers — appears to be falling out of favour with shoppers.

In June 2014, the company celebrated its 10th year as a listed company. Its shares floated at 270p. At the time of writing, they’re changing hands for 4p below this. So it appears as though the company’s gone nowhere in over a decade. This has dented its reputation for being a solid defensive stock, the sort of share that investors look for during times of economic headwinds.

Another possible explanation for its disappointing share price performance could be its decision not to have an online presence. The group trades exclusively through its 1,112 stores in the UK and 134 in France.

Or investors might not like the fact that the group’s technically insolvent. At 30 September 2024, its balance sheet disclosed that its liabilities exceeded its assets by £742m.

On the plus side

However, there are some positives. Income investors might be tempted by the stock’s yield. Based on its payouts over the past 12 months (34.7p), it’s currently yielding a very impressive 12.8%. However, this includes a special dividend of 20p, which I suspect won’t be repeated (or possibly reduced) this year. Dividends are never guaranteed and B&M’s have been particularly erratic in recent times.

But the business has ambitious plans to open more stores in both the UK and France. Also, despite the profits warning, the company still makes plenty of money. The shares now trade on a historic (FY24) price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 7.4. This is very low by historical standards and below many of its peers.

Yet there are too many ‘red flags’ to make me want to invest in the company. With its focus on low-cost household essentials, it’s the sort of stock that should be doing better during these troubled times, and not one that’s issuing profit warnings.

FTSE 250 stock John Wood Group (LSE: WG.) has tanked recently. This month (February), it’s down more than 60%. Meanwhile, over the last year, it’s fallen more than 80%.

Is the British engineering and consulting business worth considering as a value/turnaround play? Let’s discuss.

What’s going on?

When a stock tanks like this, it’s important to find out what’s going on. This can help determine if there’s a potential investment opportunity. Now, in this case, there are a few issues that need to be highlighted. And some of these are pretty serious.

For a start, the company advised earlier this month it now expects negative free cash flow of $150m-$200m for 2025. Previously, it was forecasting “significant” free cash flow for the year.

This lack of cash flow could be a problem for the group as it has quite a bit of debt on its balance sheet ($690m at the end of 2024). According to analysts at Kepler Cheuvreux, the company may need to raise $400m from investors to stay afloat.

Next, the company recently commissioned an independent review of its financials by Deloitte after discussions with its auditor. And this review has identified “material” weakness and failures in the group’s financial culture, governance, and controls.

It’s worth noting here that following provisional indications from the review, the company’s evaluating the extent of prior year adjustments to its financials. In other words, previous earnings may need to be restated.

Additionally, the company recently said CFO Arvind Balan had stepped down with immediate effect. He had been in the role for less than a year.

So overall, there’s quite a bit to process here. It’s easy to see why investors have dumped the stock.

Worth a look today?

When a stock falls by 80%+, there can sometimes be an opportunity for a rebound. But investors need to weigh up the possibility of a rebound against the risks (further share price weakness).

Now, taking a bullish view for a minute, the company’s planning to transform itself by moving away from lump-sum turnkey projects (where a contractor agrees to complete a project for a fixed price) and cutting costs (annualised savings of $60m this year). These moves could help to improve its fortunes.

However, in my view, the risks here are very high. The debt on the balance sheet’s a problem, especially with the lack of free cash flow. If the company’s forced to raise equity to address this, it could lead to further share price weakness for investors. Often, a major equity raise dilutes existing shareholders’ holdings significantly.

I’m also concerned about the provisional findings from the independent review. At this stage, we don’t know how prior earnings will be affected.

One other thing worth mentioning is that in 2023, private equity firm Apollo Global Management made several offers for this company. However, it then suddenly decided it wasn’t interested in a deal. Apollo didn’t say why it pulled out, but the sudden withdrawal suggests it saw something it didn’t like.

Given the risks, I don’t see much appeal here. I think there are much better stocks to consider buying today.

Dividend stocks can allow investors to earn passive income from the stock market. Not every FTSE share pays a dividend, but there’s a vast range to choose from.

It’s not just the case of buying the one with the highest yield. Rather, there are lots of factors to take into account. Yet I thought it would be interesting to ask ChatGPT to pick me the best one from an objective viewpoint. Here’s the answer.

A logical choice

To begin with, the AI-bot tried to avoid giving me one answer. It spoke about how the optimal FTSE dividend stock depends on your individual financial goals, risk tolerance, and investment horizon. All of this is true. However, after following up with some more questions, I was eventually pointed to Legal & General (LSE:LGEN).

It cited three main reasons for directing me to this particular FTSE stock. The first related to the dividend yield. At 8.66%, I make it the third highest-yielding stock in the entire FTSE 100 right now. Even though a high yield doesn’t make a share the best, it’s a key factor to include with everything else.

The next point made was that Legal & General has a strong balance sheet. The latest report showed a solvency ratio of over 200%. Put another way, the business is financially stable. Given this fact, the dividend doesn’t appear to be under any threat of being cut. This makes the income sustainable, which is a big tick when trying to find the best idea out there at present.

Finally, ChatGPT noted the consistent dividend growth over time. After doing some research, I found it has had a 7.73% dividend growth rate over the past decade. It’s hiked the dividend payment consecutively for the past three years.

The other side of the coin

It’s true that the share price has fallen 1% over the past year. Despite all the good reasons to buy the stock, ChatGPT didn’t provide me with any counterargument regarding the risks involved. For example, as a pension and insurance provider, the business is sensitive to bond yields and interest rates. So any sharp move higher or lower in interest rates can impact investment income, with higher volatility not ideal.

I think ChatGPT did well in the selection, but I’m not sure I’d cite Legal & General as the best FTSE dividend stock right now. The insurance sector’s mature, so I’d prefer to look for a stock in a growing sector that has the potential to increase payments significantly in the years to come.

For example, Greencoat UK Wind has a yield of 9.66%. Operating in the renewable energy sector could be a real growth space that should support the company over the next decade. That’s why I’m thinking about adding it to my portfolio.

So even though I tip my hat to AI, I still think active human stock-picking and experience has a lot to be said for when trying to build a portfolio.

Rolls-Royce (LSE: RR.) shares have been a great investment. And looking ahead, they may continue to do well. However, I believe that plenty of other stocks will outperform Rolls-Royce over the next five years. Here’s a look at one such stock.

Unlikely to soar?

Rolls-Royce definitely has things going for it from an investment perspective right now. So it could still be worth considering for a portfolio today.

For starters, it has exposure to several different growth industries including civil aviation, defence, and nuclear energy. The defence exposure, in particular, could be a key growth driver for the group as it’s looking like European countries may be about to spend a whole lot more on national security.

It’s worth noting that the company already has momentum in defence. In January, it was awarded a £9bn eight-year contract by the British government to design, make, and support nuclear reactors for submarines.

There’s also the fact that profits are rising rapidly thanks to a focus on efficiency by CEO Tufan Erginbilgiç. For 2025, earnings per share are forecast to rise about 17%, although earnings forecasts aren’t always accurate.

I do think a lot of future revenue and earnings growth is already priced into Rolls-Royce shares though. Currently, the stock’s price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio is about 30, which is quite high for an industrial company like this.

Given that lofty earnings multiple, I don’t expect the shares to soar over the next five years. They could even experience some weakness if near-term revenue growth slows or higher supply chain costs lead to lower-than-expected earnings.

More potential?

One stock I have more conviction in over this timeframe is transportation company Uber (NYSE: UBER). It’s listed in the US as a member of the S&P 500 index.

Now, this stock also has a relatively high valuation. Currently, its forward-looking P/E ratio is about 32. But I can still see the potential for strong long-term returns here. That’s because Uber’s a very scalable company.

In the years ahead, I expect Uber to expand into many new markets. Not only is it likely to offer rideshare services in new cities but it is also likely to offer new types of travel services (it currently offers taxi rides, boat rides, train tickets, scooter hire, food delivery, and much more).

Additionally, it could see significant revenue and earnings growth from digital advertising. Today, Uber’s showing ads in its app and these can be very lucrative for a company.

I’ll point out that I expect this stock to be volatile. In the short term, there are several factors that could spook investors and/or hit growth including regulatory intervention, driver strikes, random events (such as the wildfires in LA), and competition from Tesla and its robotaxis.

However, taking a five-year view, I’m excited about the growth potential. I could be wrong, of course, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see the stock suring from here as its market-cap’s only $165bn. So I think it’s worth considering today.

Travel’s an investment theme I’m quite bullish on. Since the pandemic, travel’s been a priority for consumers. And with cashed-up Baby Boomers retiring in droves, I think the long-term outlook for the industry is attractive. So could shares in British Airways owner International Consolidated Airlines Group (LSE: IAG) be a good way for me to play the theme? Let’s discuss.

IAG has momentum

IAG appears to have momentum. For the third quarter of 2024 (Q4 and full-year results are out later this week), revenue rose by 7.9% year on year while operating profit jumped by 15.4%.

“Demand remains strong across our airlines and we expect a good final quarter of 2024 financially,” said CEO Luis Gallego. This momentum’s encouraging.

What’s also encouraging is the momentum in the share price. Right now, IAG shares are in a strong uptrend. Over the last year, they’ve risen more than 100%. I prefer to buy shares that are rising over those that are falling as trends can last for a while.

The shares look cheap

Despite the substantial share price increase, the shares still look cheap. Currently, the consensus earnings per share forecast for 2025 is 61.8 euro cents. That puts the forward-looking price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio at just 6.4. For reference, American airline operator Delta Air Lines currently trades on a P/E ratio of 8.6

Dividends on offer

There are also dividends to consider. Currently, the forward-looking yield here’s about 3%. However, investors should note that IAG is a Spanish registered company. As a result, shareholders who aren’t resident in Spain for tax purposes are subject to the standard Spanish withholding tax. Also, dividends aren’t guaranteed and can be cancelled or reduced at any time.

Overall though, there are quite a few reasons to be bullish on IAG.

Questionable long-term investments

The thing is, I’m a long-term investor. And history shows that airlines often aren’t good investments over a long holding period. This industry is very capital intensive (meaning companies need to spend a lot of money to keep their businesses running). This isn’t great for profitability.

Meanwhile, there are a lot of things that can go wrong. Staff strikes, oil price increases, terrorist attacks, wars, and global pandemics are just a few examples. These factors are reflected in the long-term IAG share price chart.

Looking at the chart, we can see that the share price is below where it was a decade ago.

Better travel stocks to buy?

Given the capital intensive nature of the airline industry, and all the risks for airline operators, I think there are better ways I can play the travel theme. In my view, hotel operators (which often operate capital light franchise models), booking site operators, rideshare companies, and credit card companies could be better options for me from a long-term investment perspective.