2022 has created a lot of bargains for investors right now as some of the most promising stocks in the world got slammed by macroeconomic headwinds and are trading at significant discounts. Imagine you're a shopper, and you're looking for a great deal. Isn't it a little exciting when you hear that some amazing stocks are selling for at least 77% off?
Let's take a closer look at three of these stocks and why you might want to buy shares of Farfetch Limited (FTCH -1.02%), Sea Limited (SE -2.20%), and Opendoor Technologies (OPEN 0.70%) while these stocks are all on sale.
1. Farfetch: Down 81% from its 52-week high
Farfetch is an internet tech company that is helping the high-fashion industry move online. Fashion is a huge market vertical, roughly a $1.7 trillion industry around the world. The luxury segment is a pretty nice slice by itself, bringing in $316 billion in 2019. Note that this is a pre-pandemic number. The high fashion market has crashed during the pandemic. It had about $110 billion in sales in 2020.
One reason sales are off is China. The world's most populous country has a large appetite for high fashion. And the Chinese market opportunity might be lost for a few years. The Chinese government has adopted a zero-tolerance policy regarding COVID-19 cases, which has led to several temporary (and sometimes repeated) shutdowns in cities around the country. Any business relying on customers in China is hurting at the moment, and the high-fashion industry hasn't been immune to that.
I believe all this damage has already been priced in. At $10 a share, Farfetch shares are a steal. What I love about this company is that it's pretty immune to all the faddish aspects of the high-fashion industry. Farfetch is an internet software company that is helping anyone who wants to sell high fashion move his or her business to the internet. And internet retail is a wonderful business to be in.
Because of its brand, the network effect, and switching costs, Farfetch is largely immune to competition from Amazon, Shopify, or any other software vendor. Farfetch dominates this particular niche. When high fashion becomes fashionable again, this stock will zoom a lot higher.
2. Sea Limited: Down 77% from its 52-week high
My favorite internet retailing stock is not Amazon. It's a company on the other side of the world, based in Singapore. "Sea" is a nickname for seven countries in Southeast Asia: Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Malaysia. That's a huge market opportunity, as the region has a population about as big as North America. It's almost 600 million people, and the economy in that region is over $3 trillion.
What's even more fantastic is that Sea is expanding around the world, in places like South and Central America and Eastern Europe. What makes Sea's e-commerce model so strong? Ironically, it has nothing to do with its e-commerce website. To me, Sea's store, Shopee, is a rather generic e-commerce website, similar to other ones (and inferior to Amazon's, which remains best-in-breed). Sea's success comes from its gaming division, which provides a massive marketing opportunity.
Sea is a video game producer and introduced one of the more popular mobile games in the world, Free Fire. Sea "invades" a market first via its video games. When it achieves a certain level of success with those games, it can send its audience to its online stores and make money that way. It's this flywheel effect that makes Sea such a strong competitor in online retail. And it's why I'm an owner of this stock.
Why is it cheap in 2022? One of its Chinese investors, Tencent Holdings, has been an active seller of the stock, which caused a mini-crash. Add to that the macro issues around the world, and Sea stock has been punished hard. But nothing in this bad news hurts the bullish case for Sea, and the upside remains incredible.
3. Opendoor: Down 78% from its 52-week high
Opendoor might fail. This stock is not a sure thing, and my initial investment is small. Right now I own 100 shares, roughly a $600 investment. I plan on adding to my position over time. Why am I investing here?
Opendoor is a small company ($3.8 billion market cap), but what it's attempting to do -- offer a new way to buy and sell residential real estate -- is audacious and massive. It's called the iBuyer model; it's easier, quicker, and online. Instead of taking months to buy or sell a home, you'll be able to do it in a matter of days. Zillow Group tried to follow Opendoor into this market and then reversed course.
I don't know if Opendoor can succeed. It's basically trying to transform the multitrillion-dollar real estate market into something closer to the stock market, where transactions are much faster. Market makers have long been profitable in the stock market, quickly flipping stocks and using computers to avoid too much risk.
As top dog and first mover, Opendoor has a huge head start over potential rivals. The company has been collecting independent data on the housing market for years. That's why it was able to beat off Zillow -- its artificial intelligence had a huge head start. Although Zillow had give up on its own iBuying plans, the company recently signed a marketing deal with Opendoor.
The potential upside here is so massive -- and the stock is so cheap -- that buying 100 shares seems like a no-brainer. I have no way of quantifying Opendoor's likelihood of success. But if the company does succeed, this stock will be a major mega-cap over time. The risk/reward calculation says taking a chance might be worth it.
