The market may be keeping many investors' portfolios in the red right now, but it could be a mistake to let temporary volatility keep you on the sidelines if you have the capital to put to work. While a year or longer of market mayhem can feel painful for investors, this is still a relatively brief span of time when you're investing in the market for decades.
If you have the extra cash on hand to put into the stock market, whether it's a few hundred dollars or a larger investment amount, consistently putting money to work in great companies even when the market is down can help you build a market-beating portfolio over time. Let's take a look at two superb stocks, both of which are growing revenue at a strong clip, are profitable, and remain leaders in their respective industries.
1. Airbnb
Airbnb (ABNB -2.27%) remained a bright light in the storm amid the complex machinations of the travel industry in the post-pandemic era. Its continued recovery from the worst periods of the pandemic continues to broadly outpace the competition's, a fact that can enable it to build upon a strong foundation primed for future growth while remaining resilient if the economic tides turn unfavorable for a time.
Even as consumer spending remains in a changing state and worries about the near-term outlook for the travel industry persist along with fears of a potential recession, people are still spending money on travel. Increasingly, consumers are spending money on a wide range of travel types, with different travel patterns emerging than were prevalent before the pandemic. Airbnb's platform, which provides any kind of stay for vacation-seekers to long-term travelers and anyone in between, remains a direct beneficiary of these evolving trends. For example, long-term stays, which are bookings of 28 days or more, remain one of the company's fastest-growing trip categories and now account for more than one-fifth of all bookings on the platform. Clearly, these aren't just short-term leisure travelers.
CFO David Stephenson shed additional light on these figures in the company's 2022 earnings call, saying, "In terms of long-term stays, I mean, if you actually rewind the tape all the way back to pre-COVID time, Q1 of 2019, our long-term stays were about 13% of nights. By the end of the year, it's maybe 16% of nights."
Noting the outlook for growth in both short- and long-term stays in the coming months, he added, "I think what you see in Q1 this year is that we continue to see really strong growth in short-term stays and short-term stays kind of outpacing our growth a little bit and versus long-term stays here in the first quarter...But it's largely just driven by the short-term acceleration that we're seeing, and it's still remaining significantly elevated over 2019 rates."
Airbnb is continuing to book record profits and revenue, and cash-flow generation is soaring. In the 2022, the company generated free cash flow of $3.4 billion, up 49% year over year and 3,072% on a three-year basis. Nights and experiences booked and gross booking volume on the platform were up 20% and 67%, respectively, in 2022 from three years ago. In other words, this growth isn't just due to favorable year-over-year comparisons to slower periods of travel, but meaningful headway that Airbnb's business is continuing to make in a rapidly evolving travel landscape. Investors with capital to invest in stocks right now may want to add this stock to their buy list before the end of March.
2. Chewy
Chewy (CHWY -4.95%) is capitalizing on the growth opportunity of the multibillion-dollar pet care industry by building out a highly diversified line of businesses that cater to the broad category of needs facing animal owners today. Whether you need food, toys, bedding, specialized medication, or supplements for your pet, Chewy has it. The company has also rapidly expanded its pet healthcare offerings in recent years, including with a series of pet insurance plans as well as its own telehealth service through which pet owners can access a licensed veterinarian via chat or text in mere moments.
Regardless of whether or not more economic turmoil hits, the bottom line is that people are going to still spend money on their pets. By anticipating the full range of needs that a pet owner faces, even amid an environment that many fear may be on the edge of a recession, Chewy is well-poised to benefit from both constant and fluctuating sources of discretionary and nondiscretionary pet spending.
And in an operating landscape where cost efficiency is more important than ever, the company is making significant strides in building out its network of automated fulfillment centers. As of the third quarter of 2022, 30% of order volume was being shipped through its automated fulfillment network, as opposed to just 10% in the third quarter of 2021. Revenue grew 15% year over year in the third quarter to $2.5 billion, while the company generated a profit of $2.3 million in the three-month period.
Looking back over the last three years alone, Chewy's revenue has soared by 24%, while its cash from operations has increased by 44% in that same period. Investors who want to tap into the long-term growth of the pet care space, an industry that remains a durable outlet for consumer spending, may want to take a second look at this stock.
