7 Long-Term Investments Millennials Can Buy and Hold for Decades
Millennials still hold an advantage most older investors would pay anything to get back, and it has nothing to do with picking the right stock. Here are seven investments built to put that advantage to work over the next few…
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Millennials are reaching an important point in their financial lives. Many are now in their 30s and early 40s, meaning retirement is no longer some abstract event several lifetimes away. At the same time, most still have something older investors would happily pay for: time.
A long investing horizon can make temporary market crashes, recessions, and ugly years much easier to tolerate. The goal does not have to be finding the next Nvidia before everyone else does. For most investors, building wealth over decades comes down to owning productive assets, keeping costs under control, staying diversified, and allowing compounding to do the heavy lifting.
There is no single investment that makes sense for every millennial. Income, debt, risk tolerance, homeownership, and retirement goals all matter. But these seven options can serve as building blocks for investors looking beyond the next quarter and toward the next several decades.
Broad U.S. Stock Market Index Funds
For investors who want a simple long-term foundation, it is hard to ignore broad U.S. stock market funds.
An S&P 500 index fund provides exposure to hundreds of America’s largest publicly traded companies, while a total-market fund goes even wider by adding thousands of mid-cap and small-cap stocks. Either approach allows an investor to participate in the growth of corporate America without trying to predict which individual company will dominate 10 or 20 years from now.
This also solves one of the biggest problems facing younger investors: overconfidence. Picking individual winners can be exciting, but a diversified index fund means one bad stock decision does not have to derail an entire retirement plan.
For many millennials, a low-cost index ETF or mutual fund can reasonably serve as the core holding around which everything else is built.
A 401(k), Especially When There Is an Employer Match
A 401(k) is technically an account rather than an investment, but ignoring it would leave out one of the most powerful wealth-building tools available to working millennials.
The first reason is taxes. Depending on the plan, contributions may go into a traditional 401(k), a Roth 401(k), or both. The second is the employer match. If a company matches part of an employee’s contribution, failing to contribute enough to receive the full match can mean leaving compensation on the table.
The 2026 employee contribution limit for most 401(k), 403(b), and governmental 457 plans is $24,500. IRS
Inside the account, younger workers can usually choose among stock funds, bond funds, and target-date funds. The real advantage is giving those investments decades to compound while continuing to add money automatically with every paycheck.
Roth IRA
For millennials who expect their income and tax rate to rise over time, a Roth IRA can be particularly attractive.
Contributions are made with after-tax dollars, but qualified withdrawals in retirement are generally tax-free. That means decades of potential investment growth can eventually be withdrawn without creating the same taxable income that traditional retirement-account withdrawals may create.
The IRA contribution limit for 2026 is $7,500, although Roth IRA eligibility begins phasing out at higher income levels. IRS
The Roth IRA is only the container. Investors still have to decide what to put inside it. Broad-market index funds, dividend-growth funds, international stocks, bonds, and other investments can all be held within the account.
For someone with 25 or 30 years until retirement, the tax-free growth potential is a major advantage.
Target-Date Funds
Not everyone wants to think about asset allocation, international exposure, bonds, rebalancing, and risk every few months. That is where target-date funds can make sense.
These funds are generally built around an expected retirement year. Someone expecting to retire around 2060, for example, might choose a 2060 target-date fund. Early on, the portfolio typically holds a large percentage in stocks. As retirement approaches, the fund gradually becomes more conservative.
Target-date funds are not exciting, and that may be part of their appeal.
They automate many of the decisions that cause investors to make mistakes. Instead of constantly moving money based on headlines, the investor can continue making regular contributions while the fund handles diversification and rebalancing.
Fees and investment strategies vary, so investors should still look under the hood before buying one.
International Stock Funds
American stocks have dominated many recent conversations about wealth creation, particularly because of the extraordinary rise of U.S. technology companies. That does not mean investors should assume the United States will outperform every other market forever.
A broad international stock fund can provide exposure to companies in Europe, Japan, Canada, emerging markets, and other regions.
The purpose is diversification, not necessarily to predict that foreign stocks are about to outperform the S&P 500.
If the U.S. market experiences a prolonged weak period, exposure to other economies can reduce the amount of a portfolio riding on one country’s fortunes. Younger investors have enough time to tolerate the additional volatility that can come with international and emerging-market stocks.
A modest international allocation alongside a U.S. index fund can create a much broader global portfolio.
Dividend-Growth Stocks and Funds
High dividend yields tend to grab attention, but millennial investors may have more to gain from companies that can steadily increase their dividends over decades.
Dividend-growth companies typically have established businesses, durable cash flow, and a history of returning more money to shareholders as earnings grow.
The real appeal for a younger investor is reinvestment.
When dividends are automatically reinvested, each payment purchases additional shares. Those additional shares can then produce their own future dividends. Repeating that process for 20 or 30 years can turn relatively modest early payments into a meaningful stream of income later in life.
A dividend-growth ETF can provide diversification without requiring an investor to identify every individual company capable of maintaining its payout for decades.
The trade-off is that focusing too heavily on dividends can exclude faster-growing businesses that reinvest their profits instead of distributing them.
Treasury Securities and Bonds
Millennials with decades before retirement generally have more capacity for stock-market risk than someone already living off a portfolio. That does not mean bonds have no place in a younger investor’s finances.
Treasury bills, notes, bonds, and Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities can provide stability and income while reducing the volatility of an all-stock portfolio. TreasuryDirect allows individuals to purchase Treasury bills, notes, bonds, TIPS, and other government securities directly. TreasuryDirect
Bonds become especially useful for money that has a shorter time horizon.
Someone saving for a house down payment five years from now probably should not treat that money exactly the same way as retirement savings that will remain invested until the 2050s or 2060s.
As millennials get older, bonds can also gradually take on a larger role as protecting accumulated wealth becomes more important.
Time May Be the Millennial Investor’s Best Asset
The biggest advantage millennials have is not access to a particular stock, ETF, cryptocurrency, or trading strategy. It is the number of years remaining for compounding to work.
A diversified portfolio held for decades does not require every investment to outperform. Some years will be terrible. Individual companies will disappoint. Entire sectors will fall out of favor.
What matters is building a portfolio capable of surviving those periods without forcing the investor to start over.
For many millennials, that means starting with inexpensive diversified stock funds, making full use of tax-advantaged retirement accounts, adding other asset classes where appropriate, and continuing to invest through both good markets and bad ones.
The long-term strategy is rarely the most exciting one. It may still be the one with the best chance of working.
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