Regardless of how long you've been investing in the stock market, this has been a challenging year. Since all three major U.S. indexes hit their respective record-closing highs between mid-November and the first week of January, two of them have fallen into a bear market -- the broad-based S&P 500 and technology-dependent Nasdaq Composite.
Although a plunging stock market can be unnerving and tug on investor's emotions, double-digit percentage drawdowns in the major indexes are a perfectly normal part of the investing cycle. More importantly, every big decline in the major indexes has, eventually, been cleared away by a bull market. This makes corrections and bear market declines the perfect opportunity for long-term investors to do some shopping.
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Thanks to the stock market plunge in 2022, a number of amazing deals have cropped up. What follows are five unstoppable stocks that are begging to be bought by patient investors.
Intuitive Surgical
The first rock-solid stock that's been beaten down and appears to be an incredible buy as the market plunges is robotic-assisted surgical system develop Intuitive Surgical (ISRG -0.84%). Despite a premium multiple to forward earnings, a closer look at Intuitive Surgical reveals sustainable competitive advantages.
To begin with, no other robotic-assisted surgical system provider has come remotely close to the 6,920 da Vinci systems Intuitive Surgical has installed worldwide. The high price of these systems ($0.5 million to $2.5 million), coupled with the extensive training given to surgeons to use them, tends to lock hospitals and surgical centers in as clients for a long time.
The company's razor-and-blades operating model is also designed to grow margins over time. When it first began selling its da Vinci systems in the 2000s, it generated most of its revenue from these pricey, but intricate and costly, machines. As time has passed and the company's installed base of da Vinci systems has grown, so has the revenue it collects from instruments sold with each procedure and the servicing completed on its systems. Instruments and servicing produce considerably higher operating margins than system sales.
Though it's been more than two decades since the first da Vinci system was installed, robotic-assisted surgical system applications still appear to be in the early innings of a long growth phase.
Innovative Industrial Properties
Cannabis-focused real estate investment trust Innovative Industrial Properties (IIPR 0.19%) is another unstoppable stock that's begging to be bought by opportunistic investors as the market declines.
As of June 15, IIP, as the company is more commonly known, owned 111 properties spanning 8.4 million square feet of rentable space in 19 states. Though IIP recently stopped reporting some of its key metrics when announcing new property acquisitions, it did note earlier this year that the weighted-average remaining lease length for assets in its portfolio was more than 16 years. More than likely, it'll take less than half that time for the company to fully recoup its investments via rental income and property management fees.
Innovative Industrial Properties is also benefiting from a lack of cannabis reform on Capitol Hill. With marijuana still federally illegal, access to basic banking services can be dicey for pot companies. IIP steps in by purchasing properties for cash and immediately leasing them back to the seller. These sale-leaseback agreements have landed IIP a number of long-term tenants.
If you need one more good reason to pile into Innovative Industrial Properties, consider that it's grown its quarterly payout by 1,067% in five years.
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NOV
Another somewhat off-the-radar but unstoppable stock that can be bought as the stock market plunges is oil and gas services company NOV (NOV 0.79%). Prior to changing its name in January 2021, NOV was known as National Oilwell Varco.
For the past couple of years, lower oil and gas prices, coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic, de-emphasized upstream investments from global drillers. Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, it's become painfully clear, in hindsight, that the energy supply chain is broken and in desperate need of additional supply. With both oil and natural gas recently hitting multidecade highs, the incentive to increase domestic and global drilling has returned -- and that's great news for NOV.
The beauty of NOV's operating model is that there are very few alternatives. This is a company that provides all forms of equipment and technology necessary for onshore and offshore drilling, fracking, and recovery. NOV is also able to take advantage of onshore and offshore renewable-energy installation (e.g., offshore wind farms).
Although oil and gas service providers rarely enjoy an immediate boost from a sizable increase in crude and gas prices, NOV's backlog and free cash flow should steadily grow for many years to come.
Jazz Pharmaceuticals
Healthcare stocks can be an especially smart way to invest with the stock market plunging. That's why specialty biotech stock Jazz Pharmaceuticals (JAZZ 1.27%) is begging to be bought.
There's no question that Jazz's oxybate drug franchise is what's fueled its stellar growth. This oxybate franchise is composed of Xyrem and Xywav, which are drugs used to treat sleep disorders, such as narcolepsy.
Xywav is Jazz's next-generation therapy. It contains 92% less sodium per nightly dose than Xyrem, making it a safer long-term solution for people with heart issues. More importantly, the development of Xywav will help Jazz fend off generic Xyrem competitors in order to hold onto most of its operating cash flow.
Jazz also made waves when it acquired cannabidiol-based drug developer GW Pharmaceuticals for $7.2 billion last year. Epidiolex, GW's lead drug, is approved to treat two rare forms of childhood-onset epilepsy, as well as tuberous sclerosis complex, and could eventually reach $1 billion in annual revenue given label expansion opportunities.
At a mere 9 times Wall Street's forecast earnings for 2022 and 2023, Jazz is quite the bargain.
Walt Disney
A fifth and final unstoppable stock that's begging to be bought as the stock market plunges is theme park operator and content machine Walt Disney (DIS 0.18%).
What Walt Disney brings to the table is unmatchable nostalgia. It's one of the few companies in existence that has little or no trouble transcending generational gaps and creating emotional attachments with consumers. Though there's no concrete method for evaluating nostalgia, Disney's role in the entertainment space is irreplaceable.
It's also a company that's had immense success since launching its Disney+ streaming service in November 2019. In roughly 29 months, Disney+ went from launch to 137.7 million subscribers. To put this into some context, Netflix took more than 10 years to go from its streaming launch to more than 137.7 million subscribers. This reinforces how powerful Disney's content is at attracting consumers.
While the rising prospect of a near-term recession and international COVID-19 lockdowns remain tangible headwinds, Walt Disney has all the tools and intangibles needed to succeed over the long run.
