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Today I want to go back in the time machine all the way to 2001 when I purchased the 2 best stocks of my investing career. No, my intention is not to brag. Rather, I want to focus on what went right with these investments in the hopes of helping us all find more big winners in the future.

And the 2 Stocks Are...

Amazon was bought at $8.58 for a gain-to-date of 39,830%. Priceline (now Booking Holdings) was bought at $14.62 and is now up 16,336%.

It looks so obvious now. But what’s so funny is that back then these stocks were tumbling lower. Especially Amazon, which many experts said would never make a profit given the low margin business and competition from others. Oh, how wrong they were.

Let’s dig in further to figure out what each has in common. Most obvious is that it was the early days of the internet and these were two pioneers of e-commerce. So, riding a big wave of innovation is certainly are part of the winning equation.

Another similarity is that they were the early leaders in their respective categories. And often that early market share lead tells you who will dominate in the long run with lesser players falling by the wayside.

This is where investing legends like Lynch, Cramer, and Buffett agree. It is beneficial to concentrate your investments in the top industry players because quality and excellence are business advantages that can stay with a firm for many, many years.

Both AMZN and BKNG invested heavily in R&D to keep innovating. Sometimes that led to underwhelming quarterly earnings. But in the long run it kept them a step ahead of the competition. Amazon more so than Booking in this case.

The last point that stands out is that I didn’t buy them at peak valuations. I bought them after a big pullback. This is where growth and value combine to find the best long-term winners.