Buying stocks is like owning a share of a company, so you need to make sure that you make the right choice. Here are the 10 best stocks to pick for beginners.

Getting started in stock trading seems to be pretty straightforward. All you need to do is buy shares from a company and hope that the price would move in line with your prediction. But in reality, stock trading is not actually that simple.

One of the first challenges beginners usually face in their early journey is choosing the right stocks to trade. Currently, there are literally thousands of stocks from publicly traded companies to choose from, so it's unsurprising to see that many traders don't know where to begin. The recent market downturn doesn't make it any easier, either. In this post, we'll help you figure out the best stock picks for beginners in 2023.

Top Stock Picks for Beginners

 

1. Alphabet

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is an American-based multinational technology conglomerate that was created in 2015 and became the parent company of Google and its subsidiaries. About 99% of the company's revenue is generated by the tech titan Google, making it one of the world's biggest and most profitable companies at the moment. As you may have already known, Google offers a wide range of technology-related products, such as online advertising services, mobile operating systems, cloud services, hardware devices, and of course, the world's most popular web browser.

Alphabet stock is an excellent choice for beginners because of its extremely high network. Google is the most visited website in January 2023, attracting over 100 billion page visits in the span of one month. Every day, billions of people worldwide rely on Google browser for their daily searches. One of Google's subsidiaries, YouTube, also continues to thrive as the second most popular media platform in 2023 after Instagram.

 

2. Amazon

The tech giant Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) seems to be slowing down a bit after the layoff of approximately 18,000 employees as a part of the company's cost-cutting effort. The Amazon Web Services (AWS) segment also seems to be performing rather weakly, causing the company's net income to drop to $0.03 per diluted share from $1.39 in the prior year. But even so, such a temporary condition does not make traders stop buying Amazon stocks.

It is worth noting that Amazon is a rare company that has been successfully dominating two important sectors: Global web services and e-commerce. Despite the pressure in the near term, Amazon still offers the possibility of a turnaround thanks to e-commerce growth, cloud computing demand, and other factors that could help the tech giant regain its power. The company also has big potential to improve in other areas, such as grocery stores, healthcare, neighborhood market, and so on. So, if you are looking to grow your portfolio in the long term, Amazon is certainly a great option. The only downside is the steep price for small traders. Fortunately, there are now platforms that allow traders to buy fractional shares.

 

3. Apple Inc.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) was the first company in the world that hit a $1 trillion market cap back in 2018. Two years later, the company broke another impressive record after becoming the first company to pass the 2 trillion dollar valuation mark, and even briefly hit $3 trillion in 2022 before dropping back shortly under the mark afterward. Its consistency at being on top makes it highly popular among stock traders and undoubtedly perfect for beginners.

Apple started out as a computer company, but it has grown a lot and now it's known as the top global smartphone manufacturer. Over the years, the company keeps on exploring new areas and expanding various service businesses, further proving that the company has the ability to always improve. Aside from the core services like Macs, iPhones, iPad, Apple Watch, and iTunes, Apple also added a bunch of exciting features such as Apple Pay, Apple TV, iCloud, and more.

 

4. Disney

The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) is a massive entertainment company that not only offers a magical experience at Disneyland but also incredible returns for worldwide traders and investors. In addition to famous theme parks, Disney is present in various brands and movie theaters. Companies now under the Disney umbrella are Pixar Animation Studios, Marvel, ESPN, Fox Entertainment Group, Lucasfilm (Star Wars), National Geographic, and many more.

While the COVID-19 pandemic hurt almost all theme parks and movie businesses around the world, Disney came up with the Disney+ streaming service, which has grown into one of the top streaming platforms in the world these days. It successfully gained 28 million subscribers in only three months since the app launch, far exceeding the company's expectations.

Today, Disney's theme park and movie businesses are fully back on track despite the looming concern of inflation and recession. In fact, Disney's revenue is much greater in comparison to the pre-pandemic era, thanks to the innovative deals and the massive success of Disney+. This simply shows that the company has a huge profit growth potential in the future as the newer features expand.

 

5. Meta Platforms

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META), formerly known as Facebook, remains the top player in the social media industry. Under the Meta Platforms umbrella, there are companies that run Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus; a virtual reality gaming company. In the fourth quarter of 2022, the company announced that around 3.74 billion people were using at least one of their main services each month. That means, one in every three people in the world uses their services. Whether you like it or not, social media is nowhere near slowing down. If anything, it gets stronger every day, making the company's stock highly promising.

With such a massive user base, it's unsurprising that many traders and investors are eyeing Meta shares. Recently, the company has been stumbling upon a few hurdles from governments for some of its business practices, such as accusations of monopoly. But it's nothing like what Zuckerberg and his team have never encountered before.

 

6. Microsoft

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) may no longer be the biggest company in the world, but it is still accounted as the third largest stock in the US after Apple and Amazon. Despite its slight downturn, Microsoft remains relevant in the tech industry and continues to show growth in various areas. For instance, the company keeps making money from its Office productivity suite, Xbox gaming console, and Surface devices. Additionally, the company relies on cloud operations served by the Azure cloud platform.

Microsoft also showed interest in Artificial Intelligence by investing a good amount of $10 billion in ChatGPT maker OpenAI. Through AI breakthroughs, the company hopes to grow and expand further in the long term. This makes the company's stock quite worthwhile and good for beginners.

 

7. Netflix

Many traders have been flooding Wall Street to buy streaming stocks these days, thanks to the high popularity of streaming services, especially during the pandemic. In such a highly competitive space, Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) seems to be at the top and is usually what first comes to mind with its original content. In the fourth quarter of 2022, Netflix has 230.7 million subscribers worldwide, making it the biggest streaming platform in the world.

Over the years, Netflix has been producing thousands of original content on its platform, including some of the most recent famous titles like Stranger Things and Wednesday. The massive client base also gives Netflix robust competitive advantages. It allows them to understand their customers and create better content in the future. On top of it, the company's positive cash flows and global recognition could support their future businesses and ensure the company's stock stability as well.

 

8. Spotify

Spotify (NYSE: SPOT) is a giant music streaming platform that has been dominating the industry in recent years. In the fourth quarter of 2022, the company hit 195 million premium music subscribers, which is 13% higher than the previous year, despite the company's decision to leave the Russian market. To grow their business further, Spotify has been starting to diversify their products. In the last few years, Spotify has rebranded as a "global audio platform" that offers a range of audio content aside from music.

So far, most of these investments were allocated to podcasting. Spotify now owned several podcasting studios and distribution platforms and makes deals with popular shows. Today, there are more than 100 million songs and 5 million podcasts that you can listen to on the platform, including exclusive content with famous podcasters like Joe Rogan. While it's still too early to tell whether this method will work, Spotify believes that their effort will generate money in the long haul.

 

9. Tesla

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) is the company that brought renewable technology mainstream and is one of the hottest stocks in the market right now. Aside from highly-efficient electric cars, the company is also known for its supercharging station and partial self-driving feature. With a market cap of around $400 million, Tesla has been crowned as the largest automaker company by value. As a result, many traditional automobile manufacturers are starting to develop their own electric and eco-friendly cars.

There is hardly a day without seeing the word Tesla or Elon Musk on social media. So, seeing the massive growth of the company, it wouldn't be surprising that Tesla stocks are highly popular among traders. The company has been showing a lot of promise and seems to remain popular in the upcoming future as well.

 

10. Zoom

Zoom (NASDAQ: ZM) got all the spotlight during the pandemic. Millions of people worldwide found this cloud-based video conferencing platform to be incredibly helpful and reliable to communicate with each other during the lockdown period. While the pandemic has slowed down a bit right now, the "work from home" concept seems to be here to stay. Nowadays, many workers say that they're doing it by choice instead of necessity.

Working from home is a relatively new experience for most workers that can do their job remotely and Zoom is very likely to be the center of it all. The software is very much needed in work or daily life environments, so it's clear the company has a lot of growth potential in the future. Investors hope that with such big success over the recent years, the company will be able to come up with new innovations and technological breakthroughs to boost their profit margins.

 

Conclusion

Choosing stocks can be easy once you know exactly what you're looking for. The basic idea is to invest in companies that you think will succeed in the future. In this case, it's highly recommended to pick stocks that have special competitive advantages that make them more likely to survive in the market.

For instance, Meta Platforms stocks are popular due to the network effect and big client base. The more people use their service, the more valuable the stock gets. On the other hand, companies like Netflix and Zoom are popular because they provide unique, valuable services at the right time.

With that being said, it's important to define your strategy and do complete research on the stock that you'd like to trade. Once you found the companies that fit your criteria and risk tolerance, you can buy the stocks with a brokerage account.