Sure, budgeting for big life-changing events is important, but what about once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunities? What if you had a time machine and the ability to invest in Google, Apple, or Microsoft early on?
These investments belong in the previous century, but this cannot be said for other investment opportunities. Even in the past 20 years (in other words, within your lifetime), you’ve missed so much.
Now, we’re not trying to apply salt to your wound, we’re merely analyzing these missed opportunities to prevent this type of mistake in the future. With that in mind and without further ado, here’s our top 10.
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1. NVIDIA
If you could go back in time to the beginning of 1999, you would probably advise your younger self to buy NVIDIA shares at the IPO price of $12. This would have made you a fortune in the 2010s, but even today, the value of NVIDIA is quite high.
It was only thanks to NVIDIA’s GPUs that the development and applications of modern AI and machine learning were possible. Still, the merits of investing in NVIDIA early on go far beyond altruism and thirst for progress. If you had done so, you would have become a millionaire with enough shares.
2. Shopify
Shopify went public in 2015 with an IPO of $17 per share. At the moment, it was already gaining traction, which defeats that myth – if people are already making money off it, it’s too late for you to do the same.
Events like the COVID-19 pandemic made the value of Shopify skyrocket since this type of shopping is the most convenient and the safest.
One thing you can learn from this is to examine the industry beneath it and think about how future-proof this industry is. Still, this doesn’t mean that this particular platform will skyrocket, only that there’s a possibility of this being the case.
3. Amazon
Speaking about recognizing the potential behind e-commerce, someone with a time machine would probably prefer to go back in time to buy Amazon stocks (than spend this one trip to spend money on Shopify early on).
This, however, would require you to travel back in time to May 15th, 1997, and get the IPOs at the price of $18 per share.
We needn’t remind you that the majority shareholder of Amazon is currently the wealthiest person alive.
The problem is that, in this era, e-commerce was still incredibly young. Today, it’s a household name, but back in 1997, even the internet was a relatively new technology (from the perspective of commercial use).
4. PayPal
PayPal was established in 1998, and it went public in February 2002 (a year that you’ll see a lot on this list, so if you ever find a time machine…). At the time, the price per share was $13.
While it was a subsidiary of eBay, this has much more weight today than back then. At the time, e-commerce was still a relatively new term, and few people foretold of its bright future. In 2015, PayPal finally split from eBay and went its separate way. If you bought in 2002 and sold in 2015, you would have made a huge profit. Just keep in mind that PayPal is still growing.
Today, about 426 million people use PayPal.
5. Bitcoin
The journey of Bitcoin was a bumpy one. It first started in 2009, but the first notable surge came in 2013. This year, the price rose from a handful of dollars to over $1,000. Then, in 2017, it reached $20,000 at one point. When the price dropped to $3,000 in 2018, no one could have guessed that in 2021, it would reach $66,000.
While you may have missed this opportunity, there are many other cryptocurrencies out there that, by Techopedia analysts, might see substantial growth in the future. Though they have their ups and downs, it’s more than clear that cryptocurrency is here to stay. It’s now just down to your ability to recognize which ones.
6. Netflix
Netflix first went public in Q2 2002, at that point, the price per share was $15.
The problem is that Netflix’s stocks didn’t move much before 2013. This is when it kicked off more seriously. In other words, even if someone from 2010 had access to a time machine and could return to 2002, they still probably wouldn’t buy Netflix stocks. This shows you that the waiting time for some of these investments to pay off can be over a decade.
However, if you were to invest and then just forget about it (remember, you’re working with money you can afford to lose), this shouldn’t be an impossible ask.
7. Zoom
In April of 2019, Zoom Video Communications went public with the IPO price of $36 per share. Some even saw this as too much since Zoom was entering a market that Skype was already dominating, with no odds of this changing anytime soon. At least, this is what some people believed.
Next year, people making this investment in 2019 made a ton of money. Virtually the entire business world migrated to Zoom, every educational institution every public gathering. In other words, Zoom became a household name, a word on everyone’s lips that translated to price.
8. Moderna
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, no one ever thought about the mRNA technology. Those who did and bought Moderna shares at the IPO price of $23 in December 2018 made some serious money a while later.
Now, keep in mind that the IPO cost of this company was slightly higher. Well, this is for two reasons. First, you have to factor in the inflation and understand that $13 in 2002 and $23 in 2018 aren’t $10 different. Second, you need to understand that every industry has different cost standards.
Remember that biotechnology is sometimes a hit or miss, however, so are all the other technologies worth investing in.
9. Airbnb
Airbnb is a unique item on this list for one reason – at one point, it was an amazing investment opportunity, but those who expected unprecedented growth and failed to sell before the events of 2020 made a mistake.
At one point, people who manufactured CDs and DVDs made prime buck. The same goes for smiths who made swords, craftsmen, who made typewriters, etc. The thing is that some technologies get outdated, and some trends get hit by global occurrences.
To make money, you need to decide when it’s worth to sell. This way, you’ll fail-proof your investment methods. The problem is that some trends seem so ironclad that they seem impossible to fail. It’s a risk that you’re taking with every investment.
10. Virgin Galactic
An investment in Virgin Galactic would have been incredible had you made it around the SPAC merger in 2019. The problem lies in the fact that there aren’t many people who could have seen this coming.
How big of a market is there for space tourism? It’s probably a decently big one, but not in the near future. When the technology becomes so accessible and cheap that even people who are not millionaires can afford it, this might be an entirely different story.
If you want to capitalize on this, you need to make an early investment. Without early buy-in, you might miss out on the opportunity. It’s really a common risk with these types of investments.
There Are New Opportunities Every Day
You don’t have to make risky investments if you’re uncomfortable, however, no one asks you to put your entire net worth on the line. All you’re expected to do is take a few bucks and place them on this innovative company or trend you believe might make it.
If you lose, you don’t lose much. However, if you win, it could be life-changing, not to mention the bragging rights of spotting an investment everyone else missed. You might be scoffing at a list similar to this one in ten years.
