Long-Term Picks
The top ten stocks and top ten bond ETFs for a long-term retirement account, ranked by a transparent score computed from five years of real price history. Educational, not investment advice.
How the ranking works
Each candidate gets a score computed from up to five years of monthly closes, fetched live from a free market data feed (Stooq first, Yahoo Finance when Stooq is not answering). The blended return weighs the five-year annualized price return at 70% and the trailing one-year return at 30%. The score is that blend minus a volatility penalty; stocks are docked half their annualized volatility, and bond ETFs are docked one and a half times theirs, since stability is the reason bonds are in a portfolio at all. The ten highest scores on each side make the list.
The universe is curated, not exhaustive. It holds thirty established large-cap stocks across sectors and fifteen broad, liquid bond ETFs, so the screen compares durable businesses and core bond exposure rather than whatever spiked this week. It is built for tax-advantaged retirement accounts like an IRA or 401(k): every bond fund is taxable (Treasuries, corporates, TIPS, high yield), and tax-exempt municipal funds such as MUB are deliberately excluded, because inside a retirement account the muni tax break is wasted while the fund still pays a muni's lower yield.
Returns are price returns only; dividends and coupon income are not included. That matters most for the bond list, where income is the bulk of the real return, so bond price returns will look modest. The ranking still compares the funds fairly because every fund is measured the same way.
The second line of numbers on each card describes the ride rather than the destination. Volatility is the annualized swing of monthly returns, max drawdown is the worst peak-to-trough slide inside the window, off 5 yr high shows how far today's price sits below its five-year peak, and the $10k figure is what a lump sum at the start of the window would be worth now, before dividends.
For money you'll need soon rather than at retirement, the companion Short-Term Picks ranks recent momentum and the steadiest places to park cash from a year of daily prices.
This is a portfolio demo for exploring market data, not investment advice. Do your own research or talk to a licensed advisor before buying anything.