A FORMER homeless man who lived in a tent after his parent kicked him out revealed that he is now worth a whopping £5million.

Adam Pope transformed his life after admitting that he often found himself in trouble during his youth.

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The now-millionaire would regularly host illegal raves and joyride in cars.

He was no stranger to the police who almost threw him in jail after he was caught driving whilst disqualified several times.

Despite his illegal activities, Adam claimed that his parents did everything they could to keep him on the right path.

He said: “I came from a good background; my parents are still together. It’s not like I came from a broken home.”

However, at the age of 20, he was kicked out of his family home in Bolton after his parents became fed up with his behaviour.

Adam began sofa surfing at friends’ houses, but unfortunately, their parents soon grew tired of his disruptive behaviour as well.

He told Manchester Evening News: “I was on a self-destructive trail.

“I’ve always been a nice person – I was never a bad person – I just never knew why I was going down this path or what the cause was.”

With nowhere left to turn, he was forced to sleep on the streets where he would walk for hours “just to pass the time”.

He added: “By the end of the night, I would have walked 20 miles instead of going to sleep.”

Fearing for his safety on the streets, Adam would sleep in his parents’ back garden, ensuring he was out of sight by the time they woke up.

The millionaire Brit added: “I was paranoid about staying in the same place for any length of time.

“I would rarely stay in the same place every night. It became challenging.”

Eventually, he managed to take a tent from their garage, which he used to camp in a local woodland.

Despite his homelessness, Adam continued to attend college to finish his business course. 

Anything and everything would freak you out

Adam Pope

A lecturer confronted him about it after rumours about his living conditions spread.

“I had gone to college and I wasn’t far from finishing,” he said.

“I got there and one of my tutors went, ‘I heard you’re sleeping in a tent in the woods’.

“I got back from college and the very few belongings I had left had been stolen along with my assignments that were due in a few weeks. I couldn’t finish college.”

Adam slept rough for a total of six months, during which he recalled how terrifying “sleeping in the woods” can be.

He added: “All sorts go through your mind. There are all sorts of characters about.

“It was the winter and it was freezing. Anything and everything would freak you out.

“You could hear shuffling about and you would think, ‘What was that?’ and quickly get back in your tent.

“Sleeping was never a thing. You couldn’t switch off properly.

“But I knew I was better off in the tent compared to some of the other places I was in.”

BACK ON TRACK

Fortunately, Adam’s grandma learned about his situation and offered him a place to stay with her.

With a roof over his head, he began trying to get his life back on track and even managed to find employment.

However, it was short-lived after he was fired from several jobs over poor punctuality and other issues.

Failing to hold down jobs, his dad allowed him to work in his business as a tea boy.

This proved to be a humbling moment for the now 43-year-old, who decided he wanted more out of life.

At the age of 27, Adam started a financial services dispute company before going on to launch Spencer Churchill five years later, a law firm based in Bolton.

The company specialises in corporate law, commercial mediation, dispute resolution, employment law, real estate, intellectual property and private client services.

Incredibly, the business now turns over £5million.

Although the business is already hugely successful, Adam has no intention of slowing down – aiming to scale the firm even further in both revenue and size.

But the entrepreneur says he probably wouldn’t be in his position today if it weren’t for the hardships he’s had to overcome in life.

“It’s not where you started, it’s where you finish,” he added

“I’ve had a very difficult early few years. It would have ruined a lot of people.”

Is Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) stock overvalued? This question, while simple on the surface, is extraordinarily hard to answer.

Many investors use a valuation metric called a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio. This popular metric is useful because it measures the stock price against a company’s profits. And in Nvidia’s case, its P/E ratio of 57 certainly looks expensive, considering it’s roughly double the P/E ratio for the S&P 500.

Then again, context is important. Nvidia stock might look expensive now. But it actually trades at a steep discount to its average P/E ratio valuation over the last five years, as the chart below shows.

Many say to avoid stocks with a high P/E ratio. But Nvidia’s high P/E over the last five years didn’t prevent the stock from rising over 2,700%.

Nvidia stock is now cheaper than its five-year average valuation. Moreover, it’s not even the most expensive constituent of the S&P 500. In fact, Axon Enterprise (NASDAQ: AXON) and CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD) trade at higher P/E ratios, as of this writing. And even Costco Wholesale (NASDAQ: COST) has been more expensive than Nvidia at times in recent weeks.

Axon provides hardware and software to law enforcement agencies. CrowdStrike is a cybersecurity specialist. And Costco is a grocery and home-goods retail chain known for its membership-business model and low prices. As the chart below shows, none of these companies are necessarily cheap when looking at the P/E ratio.

Should investors sell stocks when their valuations are high? Should they only buy stocks that trade with below-average valuations?

If the path to long-term wealth were this simple, all investors would be rich. The entire investing process could be automated to sell when a P/E ratio was high and buy when a P/E ratio was low. But it’s not that simple. As I said at the start, it’s extraordinarily hard to say when a stock is actually overvalued.

Famous investor Bill Miller succinctly explains why valuing a stock is difficult. Miller has said, “100% of the information you have about a company represents the past, and 100% of the value depends on the future.”

Imagine for a moment a company valued at $10 billion and that has only made $1 million in profit. That stock would look extremely overvalued using the information we have from the past. But Miller reminds us that value has to do with the future. If this same $10 billion company earns $100 billion in profit over the next five years or so, then the stock is a screaming value stock.

In my opinion, whether Nvidia is overvalued or undervalued today largely depends on how sustainable its profit margins are. As the chart below shows, its margin has soared as artificial intelligence has fueled demand for its hardware products.

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I believe it’s reasonable to expect more growth from Nvidia in coming years. And if the company can defend its current profit margins, then the stock likely has more upside. But if its margins drop back down to more normalized levels, the stock might not fare as well. That’s a question that every Nvidia investor needs to answer.

But what about the other three companies that are as expensive or more expensive than Nvidia when looking at the P/E ratios? Well, here’s how I think about their valuations.

Two stocks I’m not so sure about today

Costco is a fantastic business, enjoying stability from 137 million membership card holders with a greater-than 90% renewal rate. But one thing it’s not is high growth. It only had 5% top-line growth in its fiscal 2024, which ended Sept. 1. This led to 14% growth for operating income, which is respectable. But investors shouldn’t expect these growth metrics to materially improve in its fiscal 2025.

That’s why I’m not a fan of the valuation of Costco stock today. Its valuation implies better-than-average long-term growth with the business whereas it’s more likely to be modest.

Turning to Axon, its growth is far superior to Costco, and it should stay robust for quite some time. The company has a competitive advantage because it sells its hardware in a package with its cloud-software services. Agencies are eager to renew their contracts with Axon because they don’t want to find a new solution for all their data. And there are still plenty of places that aren’t using Axon yet that could in the future.

However, I still think there’s room for caution with Axon stock today. Its growth rate has been higher at times in the past. But by contrast, its price-to-sales valuation is almost double its 10-year average.

A clear winner?

CrowdStrike stock is by no means the cheapest stock on this list when using various valuation metrics. But once again, value is about the future. And CrowdStrike’s potential is still so large because of its market. Management projects that the market for its security platform will skyrocket from $100 billion in 2024 to $225 billion in 2028.

For perspective, CrowdStrike only has $3.5 billion in trailing-12-month revenue. In other words, it doesn’t even need to grab a significant portion of this market to have significant growth. Moreover, it has an easy path to growth. Only 29% of its customers use seven or more of its software products, whereas it has more than 20 options to chose from.

Cross-selling to existing customers is an easy path for growth for CrowdStrike. And what’s stunning is that its pipeline for new deals has completely recovered from its catastrophe earlier this year when a software defect caused a massive IT outage. The speed of its rebound strongly implies that its customers love its cybersecurity platform and products.

CrowdStrike stock is quite expensive when looking at the valuation metrics that measure its past results. But when considering its path for future growth, I believe the stock could still be a good value today and perhaps the best value of the four stocks mentioned here.

Should you invest $1,000 in CrowdStrike right now?

Before you buy stock in CrowdStrike, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and CrowdStrike wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $752,838!*

Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of September 30, 2024

Jon Quast has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Axon Enterprise, Costco Wholesale, CrowdStrike, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Think Nvidia Stock Is Expensive? These 3 Members of the S&P 500 Trade at Even Higher Valuations. was originally published by The Motley Fool

(Bloomberg) — Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.’s revenue growth accelerated last quarter, sustaining a bounce-back as demand for the servers that drive AI development offset weak smartphone sales.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Apple Inc.’s main manufacturing partner, also known as Foxconn, reported sales rose 20.2% to NT$1.85 trillion ($57.9 billion) for the three months ended September from a year earlier. That compares with the average analyst projection of NT$1.78 trillion compiled by Bloomberg.

The company said the third-quarter sales figure was a record for that period and exceeded its own expectations for growth, without specifying the estimate. Sales increased 19% in the June quarter, the Taiwanese company’s first revenue gain since early 2023.

Foxconn’s sales is helped by a growing business supplying servers containing Nvidia Corp.’s AI chips. In August, it said it expected revenue to grow for the rest of the year. The company’s shares are up more than 85% in 2024.

What Bloomberg Intelligence Says

Hon Hai’s sales growth could accelerate in 2024-25 as the proliferation of AI emerges as the company’s key growth engine and iPhone demand stabilizes. Its vertical integration and global footprint put it in a favorable position as AI server complexity increases and demand for local production rises. More upside could be unlocked in the next few quarters as the supply of Nvidia’s GPUs improves and new models such as Blackwell GB200 are launched. Smart consumer electronics and computing products, which together accounted for 64% of total sales in 1H, could stabilize as smartphone and PC demand bottom out. Its EV contract manufacturing business might be lackluster amid a slowdown in global EV demand, and the contribution to sales could remain marginal.

— Steven Tseng and Sean Chen, analysts

Click here for the research.

Hon Hai and other hardware suppliers are riding a wave of spending on servers and data centers from big tech firms including Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet’s Google. But questions are bubbling up about how long the spending will last without a home run AI application that can bring the tech firms a return on the massive infrastructure investment.

As the world’s biggest assembler of the iPhone, the Taiwanese company’s business still remains closely tied with Apple’s. In the second quarter, about 40% of Foxconn’s revenue was still from the Smart Consumer Electronics category including the iPhone, while Cloud and Networking Products including AI servers, contributed to about 32%.

Story continues

Investors had anticipated a rebound in smartphone demand in 2024, though some analysts warn initial signs suggest the latest iPhone hasn’t spurred as much demand as expected.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.

It’s always a good idea for individual investors to look at what institutional investors, also called the smart money, are choosing. You should never base your decisions solely on others without doing research, but institutional investors have been professionally trained, and they often have decades of experience and the returns to back it up.

Following these successful investors is also a good way to find new ideas and check your thesis. Still, too often, I feel like individuals are only looking at two or three of the best investors instead of casting a wider net.

Warren Buffett and Bill Ackman certainly come to mind. I have nothing against Buffett or Ackman, who are certainly two of the best ever, but here’s the billionaire I think people should be following.

A strong record despite fundamental shifts

David Einhorn manages hedge fund Greenlight Capital, which he launched at the age of 27 after raising about $900,000 from family and friends. Einhorn rose to prominence from betting against — or short-selling — Allied Capital in 2002 when he questioned the company’s accounting practices.

Years after he announced his short position, the Securities and Exchange Commission validated Einhorn’s thesis, finding that Allied did indeed break securities laws due to its accounting practices.

Einhorn also played a key role during the Great Recession when he shorted Lehman Brothers in 2007 due to the company’s underwater securities holdings.

But like many of the greats, Einhorn also is known for his value investing approach, in which he looks for stocks trading below their intrinsic value. Earlier this year, he said that he believes the practice of value investing might be dead due to the broken market structure and the rise of passive investing:

This shift in market structure has led him to change his investing philosophy for his larger company holdings. Now, he focuses on companies that look cheap in value and return capital to shareholders through repurchases or dividends. It’s always a good sign to see even the best investors adapt, even though Einhorn is probably frustrated by this shift in market structure.

Despite changing his strategy, he has generated strong long-term returns. Greenlight has average annual returns of 13.1% since its launch in 1996, compared to 9.5% for the broader benchmark S&P 500. That equates to a total return of over 2,900% compared to the S&P 500’s 1,117%.

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Einhorn’s big winner

The largest position in Greenlight’s portfolio is a homebuilding company called Green Brick Partners (NYSE: GRBK). He founded Green Brick in 2006 with experienced real estate investor and homebuilder Jim Brickman.

In 2008, amid the housing market collapse, Einhorn and Brickman started a real estate equity fund, where they initially began buying land and lending to distressed builders. By 2013, the housing market had bounced back and their fund had amassed a lot of land. Needing capital to grow, the two took the fund public, and it became Green Brick Partners. Brickman became chief executive officer and Einhorn became chairman of the board.

Greenlight Capital began purchasing Green Brick shares in the fourth quarter of 2014 at an average price of $7.20. Its first purchases amounted to roughly $112 million. While Greenlight has been in and out of the stock over the years, the position is currently valued at about $950 million.

Einhorn and Greenlight still owned more than 25% of its shares, according to Green Brick’s most recent proxy. The stock has almost doubled in the past year and is up more than 670% during the past five years.

All of those land purchases since 2006 have been a differentiator for Green Brick in the homebuilding business. At the end of the second quarter of 2024, it owned more than 28,500 lots, most of which are in the growing market of Texas. As inventory and land have become more limited and competitive to acquire, especially in strong and desirable housing markets, this strategy has paid off handsomely.

A value investor with plenty of runway

When I look at Einhorn’s current holdings, I see that he still owns plenty of value stocks, which I always find to be the most interesting to evaluate because they trade at attractive valuations and their futures depend on their ability to pay down debt, generate cash flow, and transform the trajectory of their earnings.

However, Einhorn is cognizant of changing market dynamics and is willing to adapt, an important characteristic for any investor. At just 55 years old, he has plenty of runway left in his investing career, I believe, and is a smart person with a unique viewpoint that individual investors should watch and study.

Should you invest $1,000 in Green Brick Partners right now?

Before you buy stock in Green Brick Partners, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Green Brick Partners wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $752,838!*

Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of September 30, 2024

Bram Berkowitz has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Green Brick Partners. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Here’s the Billionaire Investor You Should Be Following — and He’s Not Warren Buffett or Bill Ackman was originally published by The Motley Fool

Do you want to retire a millionaire? Unless you’re one of the lucky few who can build a successful business or who’s born with rich relatives, your best path toward that goal is likely to involve decades of investing, which will allow the power of compound growth to build your nest egg up for you. A diversified portfolio of high-quality stocks can work wonders if you give it enough time.

And what better place to find dominant companies with decades-long growth opportunities than in healthcare? Healthcare isn’t going anywhere, and it’s already a multitrillion-dollar industry in America. With that in mind, here are three of the best healthcare stocks money can buy right now.

1. UnitedHealth Group

UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) is a massive conglomerate with two primary units. Its UnitedHealthcare segment provides health insurance and benefits to tens of millions in the United States, and more than 2 million in South America. Its Optum segment provides healthcare and pharmacy services to more than 100 million people, and technology services to hospitals and other healthcare providers.

Over the past four quarters, it generated over $380 billion in revenue. Its size is a competitive advantage for UnitedHealth, as it can offer more value for less money, which in turn helps it continue to take market share. UnitedHealth is a behemoth with a market cap of over $500 billion, yet it keeps growing. Analysts believe UnitedHealth can grow earnings by an average of 13% annually over the long term. The company has also boosted its dividend payouts for 15 consecutive years. The stock is poised to continue delivering stellar returns, assuming the company stays out of antitrust trouble.

2. Abbott Labs

Healthcare products company Abbott Labs (NYSE: ABT) has evolved over the years. It spun off its primary pharmaceutical business over a decade ago into AbbVie, but that hasn’t held the parent company’s stock back from delivering market-beating returns. Today, Abbott Labs sells consumer health products, medical devices, testing equipment, and generic pharmaceuticals to emerging markets.

Abbott Labs is also a Dividend King with a 53-year payout-hiking streak, which investors looking for ever-increasing income from their portfolios should love. Today, it only spends about half its earnings on the dividend, so it should have plenty of room for future increases.

Most importantly, Abbott has positioned itself well for long-term growth. After spinning off AbbVie, the company aligned itself with growth trends in cardiovascular and diabetes care. Analysts covering the company on average believe that it will grow earnings by 8% to 9% annually over the long term, and the dividend adds almost 2% to investors’ returns. Abbott probably won’t provide explosive gains, but years of steady returns in the 8% to 10% range from growth and dividends can add up to life-changing wealth.

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3. Eli Lilly

Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) might be the most explosive stock of these three. The company struck it big with its GLP-1 receptor agonist drugs Wegovy and Zepbound, which are prescribed for diabetes and weight loss, respectively. The combined sales of all GLP-1 drugs worldwide reached approximately $40 billion last year, and some forecasters expect that could nearly quadruple to $150 billion annually by 2032. Eli Lilly is one of a small number of pharmaceutical companies with FDA-approved GLP-1 products. However, Eli Lilly is far more than that: It has a deep pipeline and a broad portfolio that includes numerous products with growing sales.

Analysts believe Eli Lilly will deliver earnings growth that averages 20% annually over the next three to five years. Long-term investors shouldn’t sleep on Eli Lilly’s dividend potential, either. The company has raised its payouts for 10 consecutive years. While it only yields 0.6% today, the payout ratio is just 31% of this year’s estimated earnings. Look for management to ramp up that payout as Eli Lilly enjoys rapid growth over the coming years. That makes the stock a strong candidate for further market-beating total returns.

Should you invest $1,000 in UnitedHealth Group right now?

Before you buy stock in UnitedHealth Group, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and UnitedHealth Group wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $752,838!*

Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of September 30, 2024

Justin Pope has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends AbbVie and Abbott Laboratories. The Motley Fool recommends UnitedHealth Group. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Want $1 Million in Retirement? 3 Stocks to Buy Now and Hold for Decades was originally published by The Motley Fool

If you invested $100 in Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) at the beginning of 2023, you would now have $830 thanks to the remarkable surge in the company’s shares fueled by artificial intelligence (AI). Even so, the stock could jump from about $120 now to around $800 by 2030, according to one analyst.

Phil Panaro, a former senior advisor at the Boston Consulting Group, believes that the continuing growth of AI and the arrival of Nvidia’s next-generation Blackwell processors could lead to annual revenue of $600 billion in 2030 from $61 billion in fiscal 2024.

Let’s look at the catalysts mentioned by Panaro and check if they are strong enough to help Nvidia sustain its phenomenal growth in the long run.

The increasing demand for accelerated computing

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said on his company’s August earnings conference call that accelerated computing is going to be a long-term growth driver. Huang said the transition from general-purpose computing — using central processing units (CPUs) — to accelerated computing based on graphics processing units (GPUs) could help reduce computing costs by 90%.

Because GPUs speed up demanding workloads in data centers that would have otherwise taken longer using CPUs, Nvidia says, accelerated computing is not only faster, but it is also more sustainable because of its smaller energy footprint.

Huang projected “$1 trillion worth of data centers in a few years will be all accelerated computing” based on their energy efficiency.

Data centers are estimated to account for 1% to 2% of global energy consumption, a figure expected to double by the end of the decade. So the much faster pace of GPUs compared to CPUs is expected to help reduce energy consumption long term.

The demand for data center accelerators is forecast to have a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28% through the next five years. And the massive end market that the transition to accelerated computing is likely to create, Huang said, could mean that his company is at the beginning of a phenomenal growth curve.

That’s because Nvidia is the dominant player in the data center GPU market. It reportedly controlled 98% of this space at the end of last year, so it stands to win big from the secular growth in accelerated computing even if it loses some of that market share.

The outlook for Nvidia’s upcoming Blackwell AI GPUs seems to be solid, with the company saying demand is tracking ahead of supply, a trend that’s likely to continue next year as well.

Why a $600 billion top line seems achievable

Nvidia’s solid prospects discussed above help explain why the company’s revenue estimates have received a nice bump for the next three fiscal years.

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As shown in the chart above, Nvidia’s top line is expected to cross $207 billion in fiscal 2027, more than triple its fiscal 2024 revenue. The company’s fiscal 2027 will coincide with the majority of calendar year 2026. So to hit $600 billion in revenue by calendar year 2030 (Nvidia’s fiscal 2031), it will need an annual growth rate of 30% over a four-year period.

Nvidia serves multiple fast-growing markets such as AI chips (expected to grow at an annual pace of 41% through 2032), digital twins, and cloud gaming, so there is a good chance that it could indeed hit $600 billion in revenue by the 2030 calendar year. But it remains to be seen if that growth translates into the potential upside that Panaro predicts for the stock.

Assuming Nvidia does reach $600 billion in sales in 2030, the stock will have to maintain its current price-to-sales ratio (P/S) of 32 to generate 561% returns from this level. That would translate into a market cap of $19.2 trillion, compared to the current level of just under $3 trillion.

If we don’t give Nvidia such a rich sales multiple and assume that it is trading at a P/S of 8 (in line with the U.S. technology sector’s average) by 2030, its market cap would jump to $4.8 trillion.

So, Nvidia could deliver 61% gains from current levels assuming it trades at a more reasonable valuation. But if the market decides to keep rewarding the company with a rich multiple because of its healthy growth, there is a good chance that it could deliver a much stronger upside in the long run — and might even get close to Panaro’s ambitious estimate.

Should you invest $1,000 in Nvidia right now?

Before you buy stock in Nvidia, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Nvidia wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $752,838!*

Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of September 30, 2024

Harsh Chauhan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Nvidia Stock Could Soar Another 561%, According to a Wall Street Analyst was originally published by The Motley Fool