9 of the Best Stocks for a Starter Portfolio

To start off the MLK weekend I once again submit the latest picks from U.S. News Invested of 9 of the the safest and most profitable bets for newbie investors to buy for a starter portfolio.  And the names named herein are certainly solid enough to be a good fit for any portfolio.  Enjoy the weekend.  

JANUARY 11, 2022 Invested Advice, rankings and stock market news for investors.

Good morning, investors. Highlights of today's newsletter include: 9 of the Best Stocks for a Starter Stock Portfolio 8 Short Squeeze Stocks That Could Take Off in January 7 Best Vanguard Funds for Beginning Investors Should You Buy Nio Stock? 3 Pros, 3 Cons TODAY'S FEATURED STOCK STORY 9 of the Best Stocks for a Starter Portfolio For most new investors, exchange-traded funds that simply track one of the major stock market indexes make a lot of sense. These ETFs are passively managed, boast low management fees and often outperform even professional active investors. But investing in individual stocks can be a lot more fun and instructive. If you're wondering what the best stocks for beginners are, looking at financially sound, consumer-facing blue-chip companies often makes a lot of sense – these names aren't merely proven entities, but they're also generally easy to understand, and owning them forces you to track their businesses, valuation metrics and performance, tools that will serve you well in your investing life. Here are nine of the best stocks to buy for a starter stock portfolio: 1. Apple Inc. (ticker: AAPL). What better starter stock is there than Apple, the pervasive Big Tech giant worth about $3 trillion? As the most richly valued company in the U.S., the iPhone maker has leveraged its unique combination of high-quality hardware and software in a way no other consumer electronics company has, creating a "walled garden" in which Apple totally controls the customer experience. Not only are its products and services easy to understand – think the iPhone, Mac, iPad, Apple Watch, App Store, iCloud and iTunes – but many investors are likely already loyal Apple customers. Why shouldn't your expenses go toward buoying a stock you own? As an added bonus, Apple is far and away the largest holding of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B, BRK.A), lending it even more credibility from the greatest investor of all time. 2. Visa Inc. (V). Next among the best stocks for beginners is credit card giant Visa, the most valuable publicly traded credit services company, worth about $470 billion. As with Apple, it's a business with global reach – it operates in more than 200 countries and territories and has 3.6 billion cards outstanding – and it's fairly easy to understand. Whether online or in person, every time Visa's cards are used, Visa takes a cut of that transaction. With the modern economy increasingly shifting to a cashless society, this is a low-risk business with long-term growth prospects that continue to look good. On top of that, Visa trades at a discount to its most direct competitor, Mastercard Inc. (MA), trading for less than 26 times forward earnings, compared with Mastercard's forward price-earnings ratio of 35. Click here to read more. Nine best stocks for a starter portfolio: Apple Inc. (AAPL) Visa Inc. (V) Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) Target Corp. (TGT) Alphabet Inc. (GOOG, GOOGL) AutoZone Inc. (AZO) Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) FedEx Corp. (FDX) Bank of America Corp. (BAC)