10 Stocks That Could Double Your Money in 2021

2020 has been the wildest year in recent memory on the stock market. Despite the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, it’s been a banner year for a number of stocks. In fact, companies in industries like tech and so-called “stay-at-home” stocks have seen shares double, triple, or even better.

2021, however, could be a bullish year for a different sector of stocks, such as those best positioned as recovery plays since the recent news from Pfizer means that next year is likely to mark the end of the coronavirus pandemic.

That means that investors looking for stocks that could double next year may want to consider those that have been beaten down this year, as well as other standout performers.

Here's a look at 10 stocks that could double your investment in the new year.

5 Winning Stocks Under $49
We hear it over and over from investors, “I wish I had bought Amazon or Netflix when they were first recommended by the Motley Fool. I’d be sitting on a gold mine!” And it’s true. And while Amazon and Netflix have had a good run, we think these 5 other stocks are screaming buys. And you can buy them now for less than $49 a share! Simply click here to learn how to get your copy of “5 Growth Stocks Under $49” for FREE for a limited time only.

Ridesharing operator Lyft (Nasdaq: LYFT) has been hit hard by the pandemic. Revenue has plunged as Americans have largely avoided the circumstances that lead to using a rideshare app, such as traveling to an airport, commuting to work, and going out for nightlife activities.

Lyft’s third-quarter revenue fell 48%, but its recovery from the pandemic isn’t the only reason the stock could double.

Unlike other recovery stocks, Lyft was growing quickly before the crisis hit, as the company put up 68% revenue growth in 2019 and called for 27%-29% growth in 2020.

When the pandemic fades, pent-up demand should surge for the kind of use cases that drive Lyft’s business. Additionally, the company has made significant cost cuts, laying off 17% of its staff, which will help profitability when business normalizes. And the company is targeting positive adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) by the end of 2021. If Lyft can achieve that, there’s a good chance the stock will return to its IPO price of $72, about double from where it is today.

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Beyond just ridesharing, travel in general has fallen sharply during the pandemic, taking with it hotel bookings. That’s been bad news for Trivago (Nasdaq: TRVG), the online travel agency that specializes in accommodation bookings.

The stock is down nearly 50% year to date as demand has shriveled up, and revenue plunged 76% in its third quarter. However, unlike other travel businesses with high fixed costs like cruise lines and airlines, most of Trivago’s expenses go to marketing, meaning it can easily ramp them up and down. Despite the sharp drop in revenue, the company still posted positive adjusted EBITDA in the third quarter.

Trivago has also restructured during the crisis, lowering fixed costs, which will help boost profitability when the crisis is over. It’s also improved its product, adding more “alternative accommodations” like Airbnb listings and incorporating discovery tools for users who don’t have a set destination.

Those improvements combined with pent-up travel demand and a weakening of Google due to antitrust concerns should help the stock recover its losses from this year, which would lead it to double next year.

E-commerce stocks have surged this year, and CarParts.com (Nasdaq: PRTS), the nation’s biggest online seller of auto parts, has been big a winner from the trend. As stores shut down earlier in the year, and as Americans have been reluctant to visit retailers since, online retail has boomed, climbing 44.5% overall from a year ago, according to the Census Bureau.

The stock is up 400% year to date, and revenue jumped 69% in its most recent quarter. However, there are reasons to believe that the stock’s strong gains could continue into next year. CarParts.com is benefiting not just from a boom in e-commerce but also a surge in auto parts demand as used car sales have spiked. In fact, the auto parts sector tends to outperform during recessionary environments as consumers delay purchasing new vehicles, so macroeconomic factors should favor CarParts.com next year.

Additionally, new management came in at the beginning of 2019, making improvements in areas like technology, marketing, and supply chain. It also changed the name of the company from U.S. Auto Parts to CarParts.com, the source of a majority of its sales. As shipping time speeds up and demand shifts to the online channel, the company should benefit.

CarParts.com is still a small company -- worth about $500 million, or much less than its brick-and-mortar peers --which means the stock could still easily double from here.

Following its IPO in April 2019, Pinterest (NYSE: PINS) disappointed investors as its stock mostly traded sideways over the next year. However, in recent months, it has exploded. In fact, Pinterest shares have more than tripled this year, and its user base has boomed during the pandemic. The company saw revenue surge in the third quarter as it seems to be benefiting, like Snap, from a shift in advertising spending away from Facebook, which accelerated during the Facebook boycott in July.

Revenue surged 58% in the third quarter, and the company expects that momentum to continue into the fourth quarter, calling for top-line growth around 60% in the key holiday period.

Pinterest has benefited from both a recovery in ad demand and improvements to its ad product, such as shopping ads and conversion optimization tools that help advertisers get more value out of Pinterest.

Compared with peers like Facebook, Pinterest’s platform is still significantly undermonetized as its average revenue per user is just $1.03 in the third quarter. It’s also unique among social media platforms as a positive space and one where users actually want to see ads.

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A company with the potential to disrupt the clothing industry, Stitch Fix (Nasdaq: SFIX) has become a battleground stock. Its shares are heavily shorted despite its historically strong growth record and its profitable business model.

The online personalized styling service has a unique way of selling clothes, selecting items based on user preferences, data science, and stylist input, but bearish investors see it as a fad.

2020 has been a tough year for Stitch Fix. Though it is an e-commerce business, it hasn’t benefited from the same trends as other online retailers since clothing sales have been down sharply for most of the pandemic. Americans, who are spending most of their time at home, have little need for new duds.

However, that’s likely to change next year. As white-collar workers return to the office and social events like weddings begin taking place again, Americans are going to want to refresh their wardrobes, and Stitch Fix offers a highly efficient way of doing that. Additionally, the company’s nascent direct-buy program gives shoppers an option to choose their own clothes from a highly curated selection, and that product has promising growth potential.

As the economy and social life normalize next year, Stitch Fix looks well positioned.

5 Winning Stocks Under $49
We hear it over and over from investors, “I wish I had bought Amazon or Netflix when they were first recommended by the Motley Fool. I’d be sitting on a gold mine!” And it’s true. And while Amazon and Netflix have had a good run, we think these 5 other stocks are screaming buys. And you can buy them now for less than $49 a share! Simply click here to learn how to get your copy of “5 Growth Stocks Under $49” for FREE for a limited time only.

After a strong debut in its June IPO, shares of Vroom (Nasdaq: VRM) have pulled back in recent weeks, offering investors an appealing entry point.

The online used car seller had been seeing triple-digit growth in its core e-commerce business before the pandemic struck. It delivered 24.5% revenue growth in the third quarter as the company is struggling with an imbalance between supply and demand in used cars, making it hard to stock adequate inventory.

That imbalance should correct itself by next year, though online used car demand is likely to remain strong as the company is disrupting a highly fragmented industry that accounts for nearly $1 trillion in domestic revenue each year.

Carvana, its larger peer that uses less of an asset-light model, has been one of the best-performing stocks on the market in recent years, up more than 1,300% over the last three years.

Vroom has the potential to deliver the same kind of growth, and the stock could double next year as revenue growth should accelerate once used car supply improves.

Mature car companies aren’t generally where investors look for stocks that could double in a year, but General Motors (NYSE: GM) could be an exception, as the company is more than a slow-growth manufacturer.

Electric-vehicle (EV) stocks have soared this year, and GM could soon have a significant stake in this fast-growing market.

The company announced earlier this week that it’s hiring 3,000 tech workers between now and the first quarter of 2021, most of whom will be engineers focused on electric vehicles. The move comes as GM is pushing to roll out 20 new electric vehicle models by 2023.

It’s also made strides in autonomous vehicles as its Cruise AV division was last valued at $19 billion, making up about a third of the company’s valuation. And GM just forged an agreement with Walmart to partner on driverless deliveries.

Still, GM is valued as a staid cyclical company with a price-to-earnings ratio of less than 10 based on this year’s expectations. If investors begin to recognize the value in its AV and EV investments, the stock could surge.

ALSO READ: Forget Tesla: This EV Stock Has Better Growth Potential

The conventional wisdom in the investing world is that many of the changes wrought by the pandemic will be permanent, including the shift to working from home. However, pressure to return the office is likely to build once it’s safe to do so, and one stock that stands to benefit from such a return to normalcy is SL Green Realty (NYSE: SLG), a real estate investment trust that is Manhattan’s biggest office landlord. The company has interests in 93 buildings totaling 40.6 million square feet.

Not surprisingly, the stock tanked when the pandemic hit. It's still down about 40% year to date, even though office tenants are generally committed to 10-year leases. In fact, collections from office tenants have remained strong at 96.9% in the third quarter, though retail collections have been weak. Additionally, quarterly results have beaten expectations, and the stock still offers a 6% dividend yield.

If office workers return as the pandemic eases, expect SL Green to recover this year’s losses.

Another member of the 2020 IPO class, Lemonade (Nasdaq: LMND) has explosive upside potential.

The “insurtech” company is disrupting the insurance industry with a digital and mobile-first strategy aimed at millennials, and it's fast taking market share in a multitrillion-dollar industry.

In its third-quarter earnings report, in-force premium, or the annualized premiums it collects on active policies, jumped 99% to $188.9 million, and customer count increased 67% to 941,313.

In addition to the growth Lemonade is experiencing from tapping into a new generation of insurance customers, the company is also expanding to new markets in Europe and new insurance lines like pet insurance, on top of renters and homeowners insurance, a sign it could expand to other insurance products like auto. In fact, it plans to test a life insurance product in the fourth quarter.

That ability to expand its market and a strong position with a fast-growing customer base is a powerful combination, and Lemonade is one of the top-rated companies on Glassdoor, showing that employees love working there.

The stock has been volatile since its July IPO, but it could double next year if the core business maintains its strong growth rate.

Four states voted to legalize recreational marijuana in the recent election, and President-elect Joe Biden has advocated decriminalizing use of the drug. In other words, the U.S. is continuing to rapidly take steps toward legalization, and GrowGeneration (NYSE: GRWG) looks to be among the beneficiaries.

As the nation’s largest seller of hydroponic growing equipment, with 31 retail stores and distribution centers, GrowGeneration is something of a picks-and-shovels play on the domestic marijuana industry. The company has seen skyrocketing growth this year with revenue jumping 152% in the third quarter, and it is profitable.

GrowGeneration has also been strengthening its competitive advantages through acquisitions. The company estimates that the global hydroponics systems market will be worth $16 billion by 2025, and it intends to own a significant piece of the industry.

If the country moves toward legalization, as marijuana bulls are hoping, GrowGeneration stock will be a winner.

5 Winning Stocks Under $49
We hear it over and over from investors, “I wish I had bought Amazon or Netflix when they were first recommended by the Motley Fool. I’d be sitting on a gold mine!” And it’s true. And while Amazon and Netflix have had a good run, we think these 5 other stocks are screaming buys. And you can buy them now for less than $49 a share! Simply click here to learn how to get your copy of “5 Growth Stocks Under $49” for FREE for a limited time only.

No one saw the coronavirus pandemic on the horizon when this year started, and that’s a reminder how difficult it can be to predict the events that will shake the stock market. Still, many of the stocks that were big winners this year were high-growth companies with strong competitive advantages -- the types of stocks that were primed for long-term outperformance.

2021 promises to see a recovery from the worst of the pandemic, but there is still plenty of uncertainty as another wave of infections is sweeping the U.S., and it’s still unclear when a vaccine will be available.

If you’re looking for stocks that can double next year, owning a mix of recovery plays and “coronavirus stocks” that have outperformed this year seems like a smart move as there are bound to be winners in both segments.

Jeremy Bowman owns shares of Pinterest and Stitch Fix. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends GrowGeneration, Pinterest, and Stitch Fix. The Motley Fool owns shares of Lemonade, Inc. The Motley Fool recommends Trivago. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.