AI Bubble or Not, These 3 Stocks Make Excellent Long-Term Plays to Buy in January

• ASML’s astir precocious machines volition beryllium indispensable for producing next-generation artificial quality (AI) chips.

• Nvidia’s concern thesis is compelling adjacent arsenic contention heats up.

• Microsoft offers investors vulnerability to AI infrastructure and applications.

• 10 stocks we similar amended than ASML ›

With the S&P 500 up a singular 79% successful the past 3 years, immoderate investors whitethorn beryllium disquieted that we're owed for a sell-off successful 2026. And portion nary 1 tin cognize for definite erstwhile specified down markets volition hap nor however agelong they'll last, we bash cognize that investing successful fundamentally dependable companies, adjacent erstwhile they're trading astatine costly valuations based connected their caller results, tin beryllium an effectual mode to turn one's wealthiness implicit the agelong term.

According to The Motley Fool's 2026 AI Investor Outlook Report, 60% of survey respondents said they judge that companies focused connected artificial quality (AI) volition present beardown semipermanent results, with outsized optimism coming from Gen Z (67%), millennials (63%), and precocious earners making astatine slightest $150,000 per twelvemonth (70%).

Here's wherefore ASML (NASDAQ: ASML), Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) basal retired to maine arsenic fantabulous AI stocks to bargain now.

ASML is simply a semiconductor instrumentality shaper and services company. It is the lone institution successful the satellite susceptible of making utmost ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines, which are indispensable instrumentality for manufacturing the precocious spot designs created by companies similar Nvidia, Broadcom, and Advanced Micro Devices.

Demand for ASML's EUV machines should proceed to turn for decades to come, arsenic cutting-edge chips (which person smaller features packed much densely) necessitate a level of precision that isn't achievable astatine general-purpose fabs. Chip foundries indispensable put successful ASML's machines to conscionable the needs of their AI customers.

Custom chips from Broadcom, AMD, and Alphabet (which designed its chips successful collaboration with Broadcom) are opening to instrumentality much marketplace stock from Nvidia successful the AI accelerator space. But Nvidia remains the undisputed person successful designing graphics processing units and rack-scale solutions for hyperscale information centers.

As an investment, Nvidia offers a catch-all mode to payment from accrued AI adoption. Whether Oracle takes marketplace stock from Amazon Web Services, oregon Anthropic's Claude ample connection exemplary gains crushed connected OpenAI's ChatGPT, the chipmaker volition inactive profit.

Nvidia's sky-high 53% nett net borderline means it is converting implicit fractional of its gross into after-tax earnings. Even if contention erodes immoderate of its pricing powerfulness and its margins autumn somewhat, it volition stay an unthinkable business.