Self-Made Millionaires Reveal the Best Stock Investments They’ve Made
Written by
Heather Altamirano
Edited by
Brendan McGinley
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In a time of rapid economic shifts and uncertainty, it can feel like building wealth is impossible, but achieving self-made millionaire status in the U.S. isn’t out of reach or unattainable. In fact, according to a UBS Global Wealth Management study, there are over 24 million millionaires in the United States. While the exact number of self-made millionaires is harder to pinpoint, one thing is clear: many followed the same smart habits like living minimally, a strong work ethic, setting financial goals, avoiding debt and taking calculated risks with stocks, which helped accelerate their financial success.
To help others make sound investments, self-made millionaires are opening up about their journeys and sharing what their best stock investments are. Whether you’re just getting started or looking to grow your portfolio, their stories are packed with practical tips, real-world lessons, and a dose of inspiration.
Why Holding Microsoft Changed Everything
Peter Diamond is a Federally Licensed Tax, Accounting, Real Estate, and Structure and certified bankability expert, as well as a self-made millionaire. However, when he was starting out, he made several mistakes with his investments due to a lack of patience. “I wanted everything fast–including making a lot of money-and that mindset led me to constantly try timing the market, buying and selling, chasing instant gratification,” he explained.
“What I eventually learned is that time is always your best friend in investing. If you can hold on, you’ll win in the end.”
When Diamond was younger, he had a TD Ameritrade account and was trading in and out, never really letting anything hold and compound over the longterm. While he was trading so much, he unintentionally overlooked one stock-Microsoft.
“As they say, it’s time in the market that counts, not timing the market,” he said. “The stock that ended up making me the biggest return wasn’t because of some genius move,” he explained.
He made a profit simply because he forgot about it and it sat. When he revisited the account years later, the value had increased significantly.
“That was my lightbulb moment,” he said. The moral of the story is to always invest for the long haul, regardless of the asset class and let compounding do its thing. Nothing good happens overnight–especially when it comes to building real wealth.”
Recognizing a Game-Changer Tripled
Kris Dehnert is the CEO of Dugout Mugs and the first person in his family to reach millionaire status. He made his fortune through his business as well as investing heavily in several start-ups, such as the cryptocurrency Hedera Hashgraph.
“I recognized HBAR as a solid investment as soon as I heard the founder speak at a mastermind event I was attending and understood its utility,” he said.
Hedera’s (HBAR) network offers extremely fast, secure transactions with speeds (up to ~10,000 TPS) and very low transaction fees — often just fractions of a cent, equivalent. These features make it well-suited for enterprise??’grade applications needing high throughput, predictable costs, and tokenization tools.
“I knew larger groups would see use cases down the road, and they did! Today, companies like Google, Boeing, IBM, Dell, Swift, and Nvidia are all utilizing this technology,” Dehnert explained.
Dehnert invested $100,000 in 2021 and has tripled his money.
Nvidia-The AI Stock That Doubled in Less Than a Year
Nvidia, a top tech company that’s famous for its high-performance Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), which power everything from modern AI and deep learning to cutting-edge gaming, is another stock that changed Dehnert’s portfolio and continues to be a “large chunk” of his holdings.
“This stock has doubled for me since the second quarter of 2024, when I picked it up,” he said. “At the end of the day, I try to keep everything in the theme of the famous Wayne Gretzky quote, “skate where the puck is going,” and companies/projects like this are exactly that!”
Why the Index Fund VTI Was a Game??’Changer
Steven and Lauren Keys are a millionaire couple who retired at 29 years old and started the blog Trip Of a Lifestyle, which offers financial tips to help others make money and travel more. The pair lived below their means and invested 60%-80% of their education salaries in stocks and bond index funds to build wealth.
The biggest return has been from VTI, which is an exchange-traded index fund that contains virtually every public company in the United States under one ticker symbol,” Steven Keys explained.
“Index funds like VTI are amazing because they capture the average return of the entire stock market in one place, effortlessly,” he said. “Instead of trying to get lucky by picking winning stock, I simply buy them all, capturing a powerful positive return through a well-diversified portfolio, automatically.”
He added, “I profit from the stock market without ever having to think about it!”
Every millionaire’s path is different, but the right investment can change everything.
