For some investors, the idea of putting money to work with the stock market at or near an all-time high simply isn't that appealing. They'd much rather wait until the market undergoes one of its fairly common corrections before investing.
However, it's impossible to predict with any accuracy when these big drops will occur. All the while, history has shown that long-term investors benefit from a steadily rising stock market over time. In other words, as long as your investment time horizon is measured in years, there's never a bad time to put money to work in game-changing businesses.
Best of all, you don't need to start with a mountain of money to build wealth on Wall Street. If you have $3,000 that you can put to work in equities, which won't be needed to pay bills or cover emergencies that arise, this is more than enough to start or further your trek toward financial independence.
Here are three unstoppable stocks you can load up on right now with $3,000.
Image source: Getty Images.
Bank of America
Financial stocks have had one heck of a bounce-back rally in 2021. But for money-center giant Bank of America (BAC +1.78%), this rally could be just the beginning of a multiyear upswing.
Bank stocks like Bank of America will more than likely ebb and flow with the policy of the Federal Reserve. That's because the central bank's monetary policy will dictate lending rates and the interest income that bank stocks are generating.
Here's the thing: Inflation is picking up, and the latest Fed meeting dot plot suggested that the nation's central bank could begin raising interest rates in 2023, which is a year earlier than expected. While higher lending rates will boost interest income for all banks, Bank of America is the most interest-sensitive among the money-center banks. According to the company, a 100 basis-point shift in the interest rate yield curve would produce an extra $8.3 billion in net interest income over the next 12 months. Virtually all of this $8.3 billion would go directly to its bottom line.
Bank of America has also done a commendable job of controlling its expenses while investing aggressively in digitization initiatives. Growing mobile and digital banking adoption has allowed the company to consolidate its branches and somewhat minimize noninterest expenses. During the March-ended quarter, just shy of half of all sales came from digital banking.
Although Bank of America isn't the screaming value it was during the pandemic, it's still a very reasonably priced bank stock with ample upside at 37% above its book value.
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett. Image source: The Motley Fool.
Berkshire Hathaway
Another unstoppable stock in the financial space that seemingly never lets its shareholders down is Warren Buffett's company, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A 0.40%)(BRK.B 0.60%). In this instance, I'm referring to the B-Class shares, which can be scooped up for less than $277, which compares to almost $419,000 for a single A-Class share.
Even though past performance is no guarantee of future results, it's hard to ignore how well Berkshire Hathaway has performed with Buffett at the helm. Since the mid-1960s, Berkshire has averaged an annual return of 20% on the nose. While that might not sound all that impressive, it works out to a greater than 2,800,000% aggregate return. In the process, Buffett and his team have helped create more than $500 billion in value for the company's shareholders.
One reason Buffett has been such a successful investor is his understanding of the long game. You see, recessions and economic contractions are inevitable. But these economic drawdowns tend to be short-lived. By comparison, periods of economic expansion usually last years, if not a decade. The Oracle of Omaha has packed his company's roughly $300 billion investment portfolio with cyclical businesses that benefit immensely when the U.S. and global economy are expanding.
Berkshire Hathaway's incredible returns are also a function of Buffett's love of dividend stocks. Although Buffett's company has never paid a dividend to its shareholders, Berkshire Hathaway is on pace to pocket more than $4.3 billion in dividend income in 2021. This includes a roughly 52% yield from Coca-Cola, based on an original cost basis of $3.25.
Berkshire Hathaway might be a boring company in a technology-driven world, but it's proved unstoppable for decades.
Image source: Getty Images.
Teladoc Health
A final unstoppable stock that would be a perfect place to put $3,000 to work right now is telehealth services kingpin Teladoc Health (TDOC +0.45%).
Whereas Bank of America and Berkshire Hathaway were both clobbered by the coronavirus pandemic, Teladoc actually thrived from it. Wanting to keep potentially infected patients and high-risk people out of their clinics, physicians opted to turn to virtual visits. Last year, Teladoc handled almost 10.6 million virtual visits, which was up from 4.1 million in the previous year.
Keep in mind, though, that annualized sales growth for Teladoc was 74% in the six years leading up to the pandemic. This demonstrates that Teladoc's services aren't just a pandemic beneficiary, but represent an actual shift of how healthcare is offered in this country. Telemedicine is more convenient for patients, and it can allow physicians to better oversee chronically ill patients. That could lead to improved outcomes and lower cost outlays for health insurers. In other words, telehealth is only going to grow in importance over time in the U.S.
Teladoc further differentiated itself with the fourth-quarter acquisition of applied health signals company Livongo Health. Livongo collects copious amounts of patient data, and with the help of artificial intelligence sends tips and nudges to its chronically ill members. Livongo already has 658,000 diabetes members, and plans to expand its services to include those with hypertension and weight management issues. In short, the company's potential patient pool in the U.S. is huge.
Expect Teladoc to remain on the leading edge of innovation in the healthcare space for many years to come.
