Key Points
The SPDR S&P 500 ETF has a very low expense ratio and moves in lockstep with the index it tracks.
In the long term, the S&P 500 has always recovered and moved higher after each crash.
Cameco is a leading uranium miner set to capitalize on the global nuclear renaissance.
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Every investor has a few stocks in their portfolio that they believe in wholeheartedly. They could be reliable return generators or more speculative plays you think will be huge in the future.
Regardless, they are usually the stocks you plan to cling to with diamond hands for years, if not decades, to come.
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I've got a few of my own that form the bedrock of my portfolio that you might want to consider yourself.
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A sturdy foundation
Warren Buffett has said that "the best thing" for the average person is to buy shares in an S&P 500 index fund. Boring? Maybe. But sometimes boring is good and boring works.
The odds are good that any given fund manager will not beat the S&P 500 in any given year. Based on the S&P Global's SPIVA U.S. Scorecard for 2024, 97% of all domestic funds in the U.S. underperformed the S&P 500.
That's why the bedrock of my own portfolio is the State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEMKT: SPY). Like most ETFs, this one does what it says; it holds positions in all 500 stocks on the S&P 500 index, which are the top 500 leading U.S.-listed companies.
The index is one of the three benchmarks of the American economy, along with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust follows the S&P 500 closely, returning the same roughly 10% average that the index it follows has done since the fund's inception in 1993.
The ETF's expense ratio is a minuscule 0.0945%, making it very cheap to hold. It's a great set-it-and-forget-it sort of play. You buy it and let it do its thing. Because, in the long term, the S&P 500 and the broader American stock market have always bounced back from any recession or market crash they've experienced.
It's very hard to beat the S&P 500, so, as the old saying goes, if you can't beat them, join them.
The nuclear option
The two other stocks I plan to hold for the extreme long term are both related to my bullishness on nuclear energy over the next quarter-century. Nuclear is really the only way to reliably generate the amount of electricity we need (especially to power data centers for artificial intelligence) without burning incredible quantities of fossil fuels.
The U.S. Department of Energy has set a goal to triple America's nuclear production by 2050. Several other countries are rapidly expanding their own nuclear reactor fleets as well, including India, China, Turkey, Russia, Japan, and South Korea. In all, there are 70 reactors under construction around the world right now, with another 115 planned.
All those reactors need uranium, and the largest non-state-owned uranium miner is Canada's Cameco (NYSE: CCJ). In 2025, it produced 164 million pounds of uranium, 15% of all the world's production last year. Its only rivals are Kazatomprom, Kazakhstan's state-run uranium miner, and Russia's Uranium One, which produced 20% and 14% of the world's total in 2025, respectively.
But Cameco has a competitive edge that its Russian and Kazakhstan rivals don't. Cameco's leading assets include the McArthur River/Key Lake mine, which is the world's largest high-grade uranium mine, and Cigar Lake, which is one of the world's highest-grade uranium mines.
McArthur River's life span is projected to extend to 2044, and it currently costs Cameco $20.31 in Canadian dollars or $14.84 in U.S. dollars to extract one pound of uranium from it. Cigar Lake has enough uranium to continue producing until 2036, and it costs Cameco CA$21.12 to extract one pound of uranium from it, or $15.43.
The company also owns 40% of JV Inkai as a joint venture. The Kazakhstan mine has far lower-grade uranium and produces significantly less than the company's two Canadian assets, but it can keep producing until 2045, and it only costs Cameco CA$12.62 or $9.22 to extract a pound of uranium.
With uranium currently trading at a spot price of about $90 and being the only energy resource to increase in value over the last year aside from heating oil, it doesn't cost Cameco much to generate revenue. Cameco also operates in almost every part of the nuclear fuel cycle as it owns a refinery, a conversion facility, and a fuel manufacturing plant.
Finally, Cameco owns 49% of Westinghouse as part of a joint venture with Brookfield Asset Management (NYSE: BAM). Westinghouse produces the AP1000, which is the most advanced nuclear reactor commercially available right now. And last year, the U.S. government pledged $80 billion toward buying Westinghouse reactors.
In all, Cameco looks great; for 2025, revenue grew 11% over 2024, and adjusted net earnings grew 114%. For a company operating in the rather capital-intensive mining industry, Cameco still manages a 27.8% gross margin, a 17.8% operating margin, and a 16.9% net profit margin.
Despite a recent dip, the company is up 852% over the past five years, and I don't plan on selling anytime soon.
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James Hires has positions in Cameco. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Brookfield Asset Management and Cameco. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
