When hunting for stocks to buy now, it's important to remember that just because a stock has enjoyed strong gains doesn't mean it's "too late" to add it to your portfolio.
Think about a marquee stock to buy like Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL). In its first 10 years, AAPL stock rose 150% - not bad. But those who hung on for two more years (to December 1992) saw gains of 250%.
In the past decade, Apple has rewarded patience time and again.
Those who bought AAPL in 2006 doubled their money in a year, but those who hung on until 2012 saw gains of more than 600%.
Knowing which high-flying stocks to buy will keep running is a skill not often found among stock pickers, but it's one that sets Money Morning Executive Editor William Patalon, III, apart.
In his five-year-old Private Briefing service, Patalon has not only recommended dozens of winning stocks to buy, he has re-recommended many of them to new subscribers who were able to pick up gains themselves as the shares continued to move higher.
And his very first pick has turned out to be one of his best investments...
This Biotech Is One of Private Briefing's Favorite Stocks to Buy
Bill Patalon's initial stock pick was Galapagos NV (Nasdaq ADR: GLPG), a Belgian biotech company.
Patalon was attracted to Galapagos' strategy to target "orphan diseases," afflictions that strike rarely and so often go ignored by the Big Pharma companies. He also liked that Galapagos had more than 50 drug discovery programs underway, and that it already had licensing agreements with several bigger players in the industry.
When Patalon first recommended GLPG stock in August 2011, shares were trading at just $8.60. By September of the next year, the stock had more than doubled.
But rather than quit on the stock, Patalon recognized it had the potential to go much higher and re-recommended it. GLPG rose another 40% over the next seven months.
Even when Galapagos traded sideways through most of 2013 and slumped in 2014, Patalon stuck with it. He knew the biotech had the potential to break out. And break out it did.
In March 2015, he was making the case for Galapagos again - just in time for his loyal Private Briefing readers to reap big gains again. From the time of that March recommendation -- when GLPG was trading at $24.02 -- to the end of the year, the stock zoomed to $62.88. That's a gain of 162% in less than nine months.
In fact, Patalon has re-recommended Galapagos more than a dozen times.
Earlier this month, Bill Patalon was writing about Galapagos yet again. He's convinced that even now, with GLPG stock up about 650% from where he first recommended it, that shares can go higher.
Based on yet another promising new drug in development, Patalon thinks GLPG stock has a good chance to reach $89 in the next year or so - a 39% gain from the current price of about $64.
But Patalon's success with Galapagos is hardly unusual. Since the launch of the Private Briefing service in 2011, he's shown an uncanny ability to identify stocks to buy that can deliver big gains many times over.
The full list of his picks is reserved for Private Briefing subscribers, but we're sharing two of his top stocks to buy with you today. He recently re-recommended both to his readers - who have already seen gains of 131% and 325%.
Two More Stocks to Buy Now with Plenty of Room to Run
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Another of Bill Patalon's best stock picks is chipmaker NXP Semiconductors (Nasdaq: NXPI).
He first recommended NXPI back in May 2012 when it was trading at $23.40 a share. Now the stock trades at just over $99 - a fourfold gain.
Patalon liked NXP Semi because of its prominent role in the area of NFC (near-field communications) technology - the tech that makes Apple Pay and Android Pay possible. In 2012, however NFC tech was little-known.
About a year later, NXPI started to make its move. By the end of 2013, it had nearly doubled to $45.93. It continued to rise in 2014, crossing $70 in October.
That's when Patalon re-recommended it, citing the introduction of Apple Pay with the new iPhone 6. At that point, NXP Semi was trading at $61. Despite the previous gains, NXPI stock pushed as high as $114 over the next eight months.
NXPI slipped after that, but Patalon was re-recommending it again just one month ago, when it was trading at $96. This time he believed the stock would get a pop from an acquisition by Qualcomm Inc. (Nasdaq: QCOM). That deal became reality today (Thursday), with Qualcomm offering $110 a share (the stock is trading at a bit over $99).
Finally, there's aircraft maker The Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA). Patalon first recommended Boeing in September 2011, with BA stock trading at $61.92. He recommended it then because he believed the company's new Dreamliner would pull more than its share of profits from a rapidly growing commercial airline market. Plus, there was the bonus of Boeing's robust defense/aerospace division.
Over the next year or so, BA stock rose as high as $78. But in January 2013, reports of problems with the Dreamliner's battery sent shares down below $75 and generated a pile of negative publicity.
Naturally, Bill Patalon seized the moment and re-recommended Boeing. He knew the storm would pass, and that Boeing's prospects were even stronger than when he first recommended it. Over the next 12 months, BA stock rocketed from $75 to more than $144 - a gain of 90%.
Since then Patalon has re-recommended Boeing several times, usually on pullbacks. In August he pointed out that Boeing was a near-lock to land a $25 billion deal to sell planes to Iran. The deal was approved in September.
Today BA stock is trading at just under $144, but Patalon still believes the company is undervalued, citing its $500 billion backlog. Right now he's looking at a target price of $185 a share.
These are the kinds of stocks to buy that Bill Patalon discusses in detail every day in his Private Briefing newsletter. And in addition to re-recommending stocks that he feels have room to run, Patalon also provides plenty of completely new recommendations - stocks with the potential to rise 100%, 200%, 400%, or more.
To find out more about Bill Patalon's Private Briefing, click here.
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About the Author
David Zeiler, Associate Editor for Money Morning at Money Map Press, has been a journalist for more than 35 years, including 18 spent at The Baltimore Sun. He has worked as a writer, editor, and page designer at different times in his career. He's interviewed a number of well-known personalities - ranging from punk rock icon Joey Ramone to Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Wozniak.
Over the course of his journalistic career, Dave has covered many diverse subjects. Since arriving at Money Morning in 2011, he has focused primarily on technology. He's an expert on both Apple and cryptocurrencies. He started writing about Apple for The Sun in the mid-1990s, and had an Apple blog on The Sun's web site from 2007-2009. Dave's been writing about Bitcoin since 2011 - long before most people had even heard of it. He even mined it for a short time.
Dave has a BA in English and Mass Communications from Loyola University Maryland.