The market has been quite unpredictable in 2025. Even if you knew the majority of the news headlines before they occurred, you still may not have been able to guess the market's direction a few weeks or months after they came out. As a result, a dip could happen any moment, and investors need to be ready to pounce (depending on what the dip is caused by).
By doing the work before the dip occurs, investors can remove emotion from investing, as they've already done the legwork to know what stocks to buy and how much they're buying.
I'll be scooping up two stocks should the market dip: Nvidia (NVDA +1.67%) and Amazon (AMZN +0.34%). Both are excellent long-term picks, but they aren't necessarily cheap right now. Should the market sell off, these will be among the first two companies I add to my position in.
Image source: Getty Images.
1. Nvidia
Nvidia makes best-in-class graphics processing units (GPUs). GPUs were originally designed for processing gaming graphics, which were some of the most intense workloads in the late '90s and early 2000s. While they excelled in this area, they eventually displayed uses in other sectors, like engineering simulations, drug discovery, or cryptocurrency mining. Essentially, if there was a workload that required a lot of computing power, GPUs were deployed to process it.
NASDAQ: NVDA
Key Data Points
In the past few years, one workload type has become the main source of GPU use: artificial intelligence. AI requires a lot of computing power to train the model and process prompts, and multiple companies built training clusters with 100,000 or more GPUs in them. While there are alternatives to Nvidia's products, it has dominated the data center market, with many estimates pegging Nvidia's market share at 90% or greater.
We're nowhere near the computing capacity necessary to use AI on a large scale, so Nvidia GPUs will continue to be bought in mass quantities, which is a great sign for long-term investors. Even right now, I'd be comfortable buying Nvidia's stock due to its long-term projections and current valuation of 33 times forward earnings.
NVDA PE Ratio (Forward) data by YCharts
Should the market dip even further, Nvidia will be the stock that I load up the most on, barring a headline that directly affects Nvidia. We're still in the early innings of AI deployment, and Nvidia's stock has a long way to go as a result.
2. Amazon
Amazon was directly affected by many tariff headlines this year. A decent amount of Amazon's goods come from China, so the large tariff levies on goods from that country will undoubtedly affect its e-commerce business.
However, Amazon is much more than the commerce business that most consumers are familiar with.
In my eyes, Amazon Web Services (AWS), its cloud computing division, is the most exciting part of Amazon's business. Cloud computing is benefiting from two tailwinds right now: AI workloads and a general shift to the cloud. Most business workloads are still run with on-site hardware, which can be expensive to maintain. However, by shifting these workloads to the cloud, businesses can be more flexible and not worry about maintaining expensive on-site hardware.
NASDAQ: AMZN
Key Data Points
On the AI front, cloud computing firms like AWS are getting a huge boost because most companies don't have the in-house computing power to train or run AI models, so they rent that computing power from a provider like AWS.
Both the AI and general computing workloads are a multiyear trend and will likely play out over the next decade. This is such a big deal for Amazon because the majority of its profits come from AWS. In Q1, AWS accounted for 63% of Amazon's total operating profits, despite accounting for just 19% of revenue.
Because of AWS's higher margin than its commerce division counterparts, Amazon's overall profit margin will continue growing as AWS makes up more of Amazon's total revenue. This trend makes Amazon a smart long-term buy, although the stock is a bit expensive at 34 times forward earnings.
Should Amazon dip on more tariff-related headlines, I'll be there to scoop up shares, as AWS is far more important and resilient than its e-commerce business.
