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Meta's business is building momentum.
Tech conglomerate Sea Limited is sailing a familiar path to growth.
Reddit's revenue grew by 78% in its most recent quarter.
Investors often look at stocks in terms of what they want to buy. This is understandable as they frequently have money to put to work, and opportunities in specific stocks can disappear after a short time.
Still, as many investing experts have taught, time in the market almost always beats timing the market, meaning investors may want to seek a stock that is more than a short-term trade. This is particularly true with tech investing.
Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Continue »
Fortunately, the tech industry offers stocks that are great buys right now and could deliver returns year after year. Knowing that, three analysts from The Motley Fool have chosen stocks that hold such potential.
Image source: Getty Images.
Justin Pope (Meta Platforms): My pick is social media giant Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META), the company behind Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Threads, and Messenger.
To put it simply, the company represents one of the most compelling combinations of high-level performance happening right now and long-term potential you'll find on the market.
Meta Platforms recently delivered a stellar earnings report that punctuated the momentum of its core digital advertising business. Ad impressions (volume) were up 11% year over year, while ad pricing increased by 9%. Meanwhile, its app family's daily active user count rose by 6% to a whopping 3.48 billion people.
The result? Meta's net income surged 36% in the second quarter, and the growth kept its cash flow positive despite massive investments in data centers for artificial intelligence (AI).
Moving to the long-term upside, Meta is investing in the infrastructure and people to become an AI leader, a tremendous opportunity to enhance its core advertising business, build out potential future revenue streams like wearable devices, and monetize its AI model, Llama, which has over 1 billion downloads.
Meta Platforms is investing tens of billions of dollars into AI, but isn't drowning itself in debt to fund it. The company's financial prowess has enabled it to primarily fund its data center buildouts with cash and cash flow.
META Capital Expenditures (TTM) data by YCharts
The stock also remains attractively priced, despite the stock rising by over 340% over the past three years. Meta Platforms trades at a price-to-earnings ratio of 28, an appealing valuation if the company grows earnings at a 17% annualized rate over the long term, as analysts anticipate.
Will Healy (Sea Limited): Although it often gets overlooked since it operates primarily in Southeast Asia, my choice is the tech conglomerate Sea Limited (NYSE: SE). The Singapore-based company runs a gaming segment as well as e-commerce and fintech arms that conduct business primarily in seven Southeast Asian countries and Brazil.
This leads to the inevitable comparisons to Amazon or MercadoLibre, tech conglomerates in different parts of the world that are well known for e-commerce but have arguably had their most significant successes in other businesses.
Indeed, one could arguably perceive Sea Limited as a second chance at investing in Amazon. The company started as a gaming enterprise, Garena, a segment most famous for its popular mobile game Free Fire. It later ventured into e-commerce with Shopee, and that has since become the largest e-retailer in Southeast Asia. Moreover, to bolster online sales to its developing world customer base, it introduced fintech enterprise Monee, which has often served as Sea Limited's fastest-growing segment.
Its other two segments have not grown as consistently. Still, Shopee improved when the company pulled out of most faraway markets where it held no competitive advantage and began investing more heavily in logistics in its home region. Also, amid a recovery in Free Fire, the long-suffering Garena segment has finally returned to growth.
Consequently, the $10 billion in revenue for the first half of 2025 grew 35% compared to the same period in 2024. Also, since expenses grew by only 24% over the same time frame, its net income attributable to shareholders for the first two quarters of 2025 was $809 million, far above the $58 million in the same year-ago period.
That improvement took the stock higher by approximately 160% over the last year. Also, even though the 123 P/E ratio may appear pricey, the forward P/E ratio of 41 arguably makes the stock attractive given its massive growth. Ultimately, as it draws gamers and solidifies its position in Southeast Asia, Sea Limited is likely to remain an attractive tech holding for some time to come.
Jake Lerch (Reddit): For me, Reddit (NYSE: RDDT) is the best tech stock to own right now.
First of all, Reddit is enjoying explosive growth across the board. The company recently announced fantastic second-quarter earnings results (for the three months ending on June 30, 2025).
Revenue skyrocketed by an astounding 78% year over year to $500 million. Ad revenue, which makes up 93% of Reddit's total revenue, grew by 84%. In addition, the company recorded its highest-ever quarterly profit, with net income climbing to $89 million versus a loss of $10 million a year ago. Moreover, user engagement on Reddit remains strong. The company reported 110 million daily average uniques (DAUqs), representing a 21% increase from the same period last year.
Reddit is also benefiting from the AI revolution. The company's vast library of content is appealing to large language model (LLM) developers, who rely on it to train their models. Accordingly, Reddit has already signed a licensing deal with Alphabet. In turn, Reddit further benefits from the use of its content library, as search results often boost site traffic.
Finally, the company's incredible margins mean that Reddit could become immensely profitable once it fully scales up its business model. For example, Reddit's gross margin in its most recent quarter was 91%, while its operating margin was only 3%. If the company can become more operationally efficient -- by increasing ad rates, reducing operating costs, or introducing subscription services -- it has plenty of room to grow its profits.
In summary, Reddit is an ideal choice for growth-oriented tech investors right now.
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Jake Lerch has positions in Alphabet, Amazon, MercadoLibre, and Reddit and has the following options: long September 2025 $210 calls on Amazon and long September 2025 $210 puts on Amazon. Justin Pope has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Will Healy has positions in MercadoLibre and Sea Limited. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, MercadoLibre, Meta Platforms, and Sea Limited. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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