My Top 10 Stock Picks for 2025

SINCE 1993, I have offered an annual list of 10 stocks with the potential to beat the market in the 12 months ahead. My 2024 selections notched the highest return ever: an average of 48.9%. I beat the S&P 500 index by 10.8 percentage points, and every one of my stocks was up-six by more than 30%.

- JAMES K. GLASSMAN

The past decade has been exceptional. Just remember that reversion to the mean is a powerful force, so don't count on either the huge returns or my winning margin to continue.

Still, there's nothing wrong with a little celebration.

Following tradition, I have chosen nine stocks for 2025 from the broader choices of experts I trust, and I include one of my own. A theme for several selections is artificial intelligence (AI), which is in its infancy but will lead to enormous gains in efficiency and innovation. (Stocks I like are in bold; prices and other data are through October 31.) The best 2024 performer, up 131.2%, was Blue Bird (symbol BLBD), a bus manufacturer that is benefiting as school districts switch to electric vehicles. The stock, which still looks attractive at a forward price-earnings ratio of just 12, based on analysts' consensus projections for 2025, remains a top holding of Oberweis Micro-Cap (OBMCX), a mutual fund that has far outpaced its competitors in the small-company growth stock fund category.

In 2024, Oberweis made a large investment in Cellebrite DI (CLBT), an Israeli company that uses digital tools, some based on AI, to help investigators in law enforcement, the military and corporations. For example, Indiana police recently credited the company's software, which investigators used to recover vital information from cell phones and computers, with cracking a drug ring after a string of overdoses. Cellebrite's revenues rose 25% in the most recent quarter, compared with the same period last year. The company, which went public in 2021, is risky, but the upside is substantial.