As tragic as the coronavirus crisis has been, the impact that it's had on the stock market has presented one of the best buying opportunities in recent memory. The most important thing to do with your money first is to establish an emergency fund that can tide you over if you're out of work for a while. But if your emergency fund is already in place, it's a good time to invest in stocks with the potential to generate great returns.
The good news is that you don't need a lot of money to get started. If you've got $2,000 to invest (or even a little below that amount), here are two great stocks that you can buy right now.
Image source: Getty Images.
MongoDB
Many growth stocks have taken a beating during the coronavirus-fueled stock market sell-off. MongoDB (MDB 0.13%) is no exception. At one point, shares of MongoDB were down 45% from their highs set earlier this year. Even after a nice rebound, the stock is still more than 20% off of its highs.
MongoDB markets a database platform designed for the unstructured data that's growing like crazy in today's world. Its database is also designed to be run anywhere, including in the cloud -- where organizations continue to rapidly migrate apps and data.
Like many companies, MongoDB's financial performance will be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. COO and CFO Michael Gordon said in the company's Q4 conference call in March that MongoDB expects that its fiscal 2021 revenue will be between $15 million and $25 million lower due to weaker bookings in the first half of the year as organizations deal with the effects of the coronavirus.
But MongoDB's long-term prospects shouldn't be dented at all by the COVID-19 pandemic. Market researcher IDC projects that the global database market will reach $97 billion by 2023, up from $71 billion this year. MongoDB currently captures less than 1% of the market but is growing faster than its larger rivals.
The company isn't profitable yet. However, it should be able to attain profitability as its spending growth rate tapers off and its Atlas cloud-based fully managed database service sales continue to skyrocket. I think that investors who don't scoop up shares of this stock while it trades at a discount could be kicking themselves in a few years.
Intuitive Surgical
Intuitive Surgical (ISRG 1.49%) stock has also been hammered as a result of COVID-19 worries. Although the robotic surgical systems stock is now down around 20% from its highs earlier this year, it fell as much as 31%.
The issue for Intuitive Surgical is that many hospitals have pushed back elective surgeries as they braced for a potential onslaught of COVID-19 cases and as implemented social distancing measures. This is likely to cause the company's revenue to be lower than expected in the first half of 2020.
However, as is the case with MongoDB, the impact of the coronavirus on Intuitive Surgical will only be a temporary one. It shouldn't take long for the company to return to business as usual after things begin to return to normal. And Intuitive's business is booming.
Procedures using its da Vinci robotic surgical system continue to grow by strong double-digit percentages each year. This is helping boost Intuitive Surgical's recurring revenue, which already stands at an impressive 72% of total revenue. The company is seeing the impact on its top and bottom lines, both of which jumped 22% year over year in the fourth quarter of 2019.
I fully expect the global robotic surgical systems market to expand in the future for two primary reasons. First, the numbers of older individuals are increasing across the world. This demographic trend will fuel higher demand for the kinds of surgical procedures that are ideal for robotic surgery. Second, Intuitive's technological advances will open the door for even more types of procedures to be performed with robotic assistance. I think that Intuitive Surgical is as close to a slam-dunk winner over the long run as there is.
A few shares can go a long way
Granted, you won't be able to buy very many shares of MongoDB and Intuitive Surgical with $2,000. MongoDB's shares currently trade at more than $130 while Intuitive Surgical's share price is close to $500. But it's perfectly OK to only buy a couple of shares of Intuitive and a handful of shares of MongoDB. With the growth prospects for these two great companies, even just a few shares can go a long way in generating tremendous returns over the next few years.
