Have $5,000? These 2 Stocks Could Be Bargain Buys for 2025 and Beyond.

Key Points

• Investors can likely click on AI-driven gains with Meta Platforms.

• The AT&T comeback looks to be in full swing.

• 10 stocks we like better than Meta Platforms ›

It is not often that one sees bargains in the technology sector. Tech is best known for cutting-edge companies that bring new technologies to the market. Investors tend to warm to these stocks and often bid them into stratospheric valuations.

Fortunately, despite record highs in the Nasdaq, investors can find low-valuation tech stocks that have suffered from either investor pessimism or a failure of investors to understand the growth potential of a market opportunity. Amid such conditions, one can likely put $5,000 to work profitably.

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 »

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Meta Platforms

Facebook parent Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) is at a crossroads. For now, it benefits from relatively rapid growth as it successfully sells more advertising due to the nearly 3.5 billion people who visit one of its social media sites every day.

However, that amounts to around 42% of the world's population, leaving relatively little room to grow its subscriber base and, by extension, its ad platforms. To this end, it pivoted into artificial intelligence (AI) in an attempt to leverage its vast stores of data to train AI models.

It allocated between $66 billion and $72 billion in 2025 alone to capital expenditures, most of which will probably bolster its AI business. The company claims approximately $47 billion in liquidity, and the additional $19 billion it generated in free cash flow in the first half of 2025 does not include capex spending. Thus, it can probably afford this investment.

Meta is also making this move at a time when the digital ad business, which makes up almost 98% of revenue, is still relatively strong. In the first two quarters of 2025, it reported $89 billion in revenue, a 19% yearly increase.

In comparison, its costs and expenses grew by about 10% over the same period. Consequently, its $35 billion in net income surged 36% from year-ago levels.

Indeed, the stock has remained on a growth trajectory, rising by approximately 35% over the last year.

Despite that increase, its 27 P/E ratio is below the S&P 500 average of 31 and arguably low considering Meta's rate of profit growth. Even with the high nominal share price investors can buy three shares of this stock for around $2,230 while they wait for the company to diversify its revenue sources.

AT&T

After years of struggles, it might finally be time for investors to consider AT&T (NYSE: T) stock. AT&T has long stood out as one of the few telcom providers, with Verizon Communications and T-Mobile US as its only major competitors.

The drawback to its situation is that it must invest billions of dollars annually to update and maintain its extensive wireless and fiber networks, and it has not always allocated this capital effectively. In the previous decade, costly missteps into satellite TV and content delivery cost AT&T tens of billions of dollars. That eventually forced it to abandon a 35-year streak of annual dividend increases.

However, the company now focuses primarily on its wireless and fiber operations. Also, marketing strategies like bundling wireless and broadband services have enhanced its competitive edge.

That approach has helped it stabilize its dividend, which, at $1.11 per share annually, offers a dividend yield of 3.9%. In the year's first half, it generated $7.5 billion in free cash flow, allowing it to cover the dividend costs of $4.1 billion during that time. That means it can likely afford to maintain or possibly increase this payout.

Admittedly, AT&T reflects the more measured growth rates of mature companies, and its financials show slow but steady progress. In the first half of 2025, revenue of $61 billion rose 3% compared to the same period in 2024.

Its slower cost and expense growth boosted its operating income. Also, for the first two quarters of 2025, lower interest costs and unrealized gains from investments helped take the net income attributable to AT&T to $8.9 billion, a 26% yearly increase.

Those improvements were enough to take its stock 33% higher over the last year, and at a P/E ratio of just 16, it is likely not too late to take one's remaining $2,770 and buy just over 97 shares to take advantage of the growing opportunity in AT&T stock.

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Will Healy has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool recommends T-Mobile US and Verizon Communications. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.