6 Signs of a Winning Stock, Each Shown by a Real Company
Back on Dec. 27, 2010, I bought some Google stock at a split-adjusted $15.03 a share. The company has since renamed itself Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) , split its stock twice, and doubled down on artificial intelligence. On Oct. 16, 2026, the shares closed at $340.59. That's a 2,166.1% gain in nearly 16 years. A $1,000 stake from that day would be worth about $22,661 now. I'd love to tell you I saw it all coming, but I did not predict the AI boom or YouTube's growth. What I saw was a business with traits that tend to show up in long-term winners. Those traits can be measured. Below are six of them, each paired with a company that clearly illustrates it and a specific test you can apply to any stock. Fair warning: a couple of these stocks have had a rotten year as of this writing. That's part of the lesson: don't sell a great stock in the inevitable dips. Continue reading