It can feel hopeless when stocks keep falling, and bear markets can test the stomach of even the most experienced investor. But history has shown that the market eventually rebounds and climbs higher, which will probably be the case again. It can feel like this time is different, but it rarely is.
Optimism can pay handsomely; stocks could keep falling, but many have now fallen 50% to 90% from their highs. Those with strong fundamentals will generate strong long-term returns from these low prices, making now a great time to accumulate shares if you diversify and use dollar-cost averaging to buy slowly over time.
A handful of companies are doing very well, even if their stock prices don't show it. Thanks to panic on Wall Street, you can invest in these two potential winners for under $200.
A semiconductor leader: Down 56%
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 1.16%) is a leading semiconductor company that designs chips for many computing applications, like gaming, the cloud, data centers, artificial intelligence, and more. AMD has been around for decades but has recently hit its stride. The company's sales have nearly quadrupled since 2019, and its recent $50 billion acquisition of Xilinx has expanded AMD's product offering and boosted growth.
AMD Revenue (TTM) data by YCharts
The broader market decline and recession fears have pressured the stock. Semiconductors are a cyclical industry, and an economic downturn would potentially stunt demand for chips. However, analysts remain optimistic -- estimates call for annual earnings per share (EPS) growth averaging 17% over the next three to five years. The stock has fallen 56% from its high and trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) of 16.3.
The S&P 500 trades at a forward P/E just below that at 17, yet has historically averaged earnings growth of just 10% annually. AMD stock seems like a solid bet to outperform the broader market from here if the business executes and meets analysts' growth expectations moving forward.
A SaaS company reinventing work: Down 73%
Monday.com (MNDY 0.32%) is a software company that operates on a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. Monday.com's platform helps organizations and companies collaborate and work better by offering low/no-code tools to create custom dashboards, forms, and other productivity tools. The company was founded just a decade ago, but strong growth has made Monday.com an emerging software stock to watch -- revenue has tripled since the company went public just two years ago.
MNDY Revenue (TTM) data by YCharts
High-growth stocks traded to nosebleed valuations in 2021, including Monday.com, which hit a price-to-sales ratio (P/S) as high as 60. Valuations that high set expectations on Wall Street that were nearly impossible to meet, so the stock's decline shouldn't be a huge surprise. Today the stock's P/S ratio is a much more reasonable 11. Importantly, Monday.com has kept growing despite the sliding share price.
Even if the stock's valuation remains stagnant from now on, Monday.com is growing fast enough that it could produce strong investment returns. Revenue rose 65% year over year in the third quarter of 2022, and still, with just 3,000 paying customers, there is much more room for expansion over the coming years. The business isn't yet profitable, but it has $852 million in cash and is nearly break-even on a cash flow basis, and that should give the company financial ammo to continue investing in its growth.
