The economy is finally stabilizing after a brutal first half of 2022. As a result, many stocks are bouncing back from steep drops that were based on recession fears and galloping inflation.
This rebound could be the start of a robust market recovery or perhaps just a temporary improvement amid a long-term downtrend. There's no way to know for sure -- but market timing is best done with Monopoly money, anyway. Great companies can deliver game-changing returns in the long run, as long as you're buying their stocks at reasonable prices.
Many tech stocks are trading near multiyear lows right now. The long-term winners in that group look like fantastic investments today, whether the market continues its recovery or takes another dip in the near future.
If you're worried about a darker bear market, you could use dollar-cost averaging to build your stock positions. That way, you'll pick up some shares at today's reasonable prices and follow them up with more purchases at even deeper discounts. And maybe the market will turn upward instead -- but at least you put some skin in the game while prices were good.
Either way, this looks like a great time to grab stocks you've been watching for a while. On that note, consider two of the tech stocks on my own rainy-day watch list.
Oops, the market misunderstood Netflix's strategy
Media-streaming veteran Netflix (NFLX -9.09%) has posted a 30% gain over the last month. That's one of the 10 strongest 30-day returns among the 503 tickers that form the S&P 500 (^GSPC -0.88%) market index. You may have missed Netflix's market bottom, but there's plenty of room for further gains.
Believe it or not, Netflix is still the worst-performing S&P 500 stock in 2022. The stock has taken a 62% haircut this year, even after the impressive earnings-based jump in July. The buy-in window is still wide open.
Of course, none of that matters if there's something wrong with Netflix's business. Plunging share prices would be a sure sign of unfixable issues and unreasonable business plans in a perfect world. But this is the real world, where market makers often misinterpret the news and overreact to trivial spots of difficulty.
That's the case with Netflix in 2022. The stock fell headlong in the first half, due to stalled subscriber growth. Netflix bears claim that the company's days of high-octane growth are over because that all-important metric is the only thing that matters.
However, Netflix critics don't seem to pay attention to the company's shifting strategy. Yes, the company used to be optimized for maximal user growth at almost any cost, but that's not management's focus anymore. Instead, the company aims for profitable revenue growth. Here's how that strategy is working out:
NFLX Revenue (TTM) data by YCharts.
For example, Netflix is attempting to convert password-sharing freeloaders into paying customers. These ideas involve adding lower-priced sub-accounts for people living outside the password-sharing Netflix customer's primary home. If that plan works out, it could boost Netflix's top-line revenues by double-digit percentages without adding a single name to the subscriber count.
The company continues to grow where it matters, while leading the global charge in converting the TV-viewing experience into a digital-streaming model. That battle started more than a decade ago and may still have another 10 years left to go before the old-school cable, satellite, and broadcast industry has been fully replaced.
Netflix's business should continue its growth for a long time, and market makers will eventually realize that this-year's myopic fixation on subscriber counts was a big mistake. Netflix is a no-brainer buy for the long haul.
Fiverr is just getting started on a long journey
Freelance-services specialist Fiverr International (FVRR -0.96%) has actually taken a harder hit than Netflix this year. The stock is trading 65% lower in 2022 and 80% below November's all-time highs. As an Israel-based company, Fiverr isn't a component of the all-American S&P 500 index.
The company is a firmly established leader in the up-and-coming gig economy. Fiverr should deliver consistent top-line growth for many years, eventually adding robust profits into the mix. Unfortunately, many investors appear to have written off Fiverr (and its gig-economy peers) as a short-lived play on the lockdowns and stay-at-home orders of the early coronavirus crisis.
In my eyes, freelancing and contractor work is here to stay. Sure, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the rise of Fiverr's business, but it barely slowed down when widely available vaccines ended the lockdowns.
Fiverr is unprofitable, like any high-growth business that invests every penny of spare cash into marketing programs, more staff, and other growth-promoting budget lines. The investments are paying off, though. Fiverr's top-line sales rose by 57% in 2021, for example.
FVRR Revenue (TTM) data by YCharts.
This company is changing how people think about work, which is a big deal. Like Netflix, Fiverr is staring down a massive global market that will support raging sales growth for the foreseeable future. The profits can wait until Fiverr has carved out a multibillion-dollar slice of an annual revenue opportunity that soon will be measured in trillions.
