Even though July was a great month for stocks, many are still well off their all-time highs. This means it's not too late for investors to pick up some fantastic companies for bargain prices.
Among the stocks I'm eyeing are Datadog (DDOG -1.22%), MercadoLibre (MELI -0.61%), and dLocal (DLO -1.53%). I believe these three companies still have a long way to run, and investors should keep these stocks at the top of their watch lists.
1. Datadog
With businesses migrating their operations to the cloud, it's becoming increasingly necessary to monitor how these programs interact with each other. In-house solutions are clunky and can be disrupted with the addition of another program, but Datadog's offering is adaptable and helps its users monitor cloud offerings across nearly every cloud software platform. As assessed by third-party research specialist Gartner, Datadog has one of the top solutions in the application performance management and observability sector and claimed the highest position in the ability to execute.
Datadog also recently reported stellar Q2 results. Revenue grew 74% year over year to $406 million, and free cash flow was $73 million. Datadog also barely lost money, with just a $3.1 million operating loss. Additionally, customers that spend more than $100,000 annually grew 54% year over year to 1,570. These were solid results that few can find a flaw in.
What did give analysts some concern was Datadog's guidance. For Q3, management projected 52% year-over-year revenue growth to $412 million -- just under analysts' projection of $413 million. This "miss" is pretty nit-picky, and the stock has nearly recovered all of losses it saw in premarket trading.
The market for this type of monitoring software will only expand. With Datadog's business still rapidly growing while the stock is down more than 40% from its high, this looks like an attractive buying opportunity.
2. MercadoLibre
MercadoLibre also reported results recently, and just like Datadog's, they were solid. The Latin American company is bringing the necessary infrastructure for e-commerce to thrive to its customer base. With its online marketplace, shipping logistics, digital payments, and credit divisions, MercadoLibre has become the one-stop shop for all things commerce in Latin America.
While its retail business isn't growing as quickly as it used to (its commerce division's revenue rose 23% year over year versus 101% during last year's Q2), its fintech segment is picking up the slack. MercadoLibre's fintech revenue increased 107% year over year to $1.2 billion, thanks to its growing credit division and rising total payment volume. Overall, revenue was up 57% year over year to $2.6 billion, and MercadoLibre delivered a profitable 4.7% operating margin.
For a stock that traded for a rock-bottom valuation of four times sales just one month ago, MercadoLibre still has a cheap valuation of 5.6 times sales. Despite the shares' near-30% returns in five days, MercadoLibre remains well off its all-time high of $1,970 and below its typical 10 times sales multiple.
The stock still has a long way to go to retake its all-time high, and investors can make a great return by putting their money into MercadoLibre's stock as it attempts to claw back its former valuation.
3. dLocal
dLocal hasn't reported its Q2 earnings yet (it's due to release them on Aug. 23), but I don't need to see its latest results to know how solid of a company it is. dLocal provides the necessary pipelines for businesses like Amazon, Nike, and Uber Technologies to do business in emerging markets like Malaysia, Panama, or Morocco. Setting up dealers or ways to pay vendors and operators in these remote areas country by country would be expensive and wasteful. dLocal's tools allow companies to operate as usual in their preferred currency, and dLocal takes care of the rest, converting the money into local currency.
This solution has been wildly popular, as evidenced by revenue growing 117% year over year to $87 million in Q1. Additionally, its net revenue retention rate was 190%, meaning customers spent $190 for every $100 they spent last year. To top things off, dLocal is profitable, with a profit margin of 30% during the first quarter.
However, due to dLocal's rapid growth rate and profitability, the stock is richly valued at 34 times sales and 109 times earnings. Because of this lofty valuation, the company must continue to deliver stellar results, or the stock will get slammed.
I believe dLocal is just getting started, as many merchants do not operate in every country in which it operates. Furthermore, dLocal onboarded more than 10 "significant merchants" in Q1, which shows the business is still attracting clients. While the market opportunity for each country may not be massive, it represents a sizable market that will attract companies from all industries when they are all lumped in.
dLocal has massive upside, and with the stock price down over 50% from its all-time high, investors would be wise to put this one on their watch list.
