3 Growth Stocks to Invest $1,000 Right Now

Key Points

• Nvidia is providing the processing-power backbone of the global AI infrastructure buildout.

• Enterprise clients are trending away from cybersecurity vendors offering point solutions and shifting toward multimodular platform providers like CrowdStrike.

• Eli Lilly is dominating the fast-growing diabetes and weight loss markets.

• 10 stocks we like better than Nvidia ›

Those who succeed at building wealth in the stock market often do so by buying and holding stakes in companies that have the ability to expand steadily over time. Such companies can frequently be found in the technology and healthcare sectors -- two sources of innovations that sometimes reshape our lives.

If you have $1,000 that you don't expect to need for bills or other contingencies, and that you can commit to your portfolio for the long term, investing it in any or all of these three growth stocks could prove to be a wise decision.

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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Nvidia

Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) is creating the backbone of the world's artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure -- and its business momentum is enormous. In its fiscal 2026 second quarter (which ended July 27), revenues surged 56% year over year to $46.7 billion, with demand for data centers driving the majority of that growth. Management expects revenues of $54 billion, plus or minus 2%, in the fiscal third quarter, with gross margins exceeding 70%.

Hyperscalers, enterprises, and sovereign projects have been increasingly scooping up Nvidia's latest GPUs, built on its Blackwell architecture. Nvidia has started production shipments of the GB300, its latest generation AI data center system, and is now delivering nearly 1,000 racks worth per week. With the GB300 offering significant performance improvements in inference (real-time model deployment) workloads and better energy efficiency compared to previous Hopper architecture systems, it is fast becoming the new standard for AI data center deployments.

However, Nvidia is no longer focused solely on GPUs. The company's networking revenues soared 98% year over year to $7.3 billion in the second quarter. Sales of its Spectrum-X enhanced Ethernet solutions have reached an annual run rate of over $10 billion. Its Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) software stack is also helping create a sticky customer base. Finally, Nvidia remains committed to rapid innovation and plans to release its next-generation Rubin architecture chips in 2026. Its shift to an annual product release cadence positions it to keep capturing a significant share of the enormous AI infrastructure market.

Though as a company, Nvidia has many strengths, with its stock trading at around 39.4 times expected forward earnings, it is definitely not a cheap investment. But great businesses rarely are. Considering its solid business model, strong financials, and capacity for innovation, Nvidia appears to be an attractive stock buy, even at elevated valuation levels.

CrowdStrike

Cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD) is focusing on both top-line growth and profitability as demand for its cloud-native platform accelerates. In its fiscal 2026 second quarter (which ended July 31), revenues grew 21% year over year to $1.17 billion, while non-GAAP operating income rose 5.7% to $255 million. The company's free cash flow was $283.6 million, making up 24% of revenues.

Businesses are increasingly dropping their legacy cybersecurity point product providers in favor of CrowdStrike's multimodular Falcon platform. Its Falcon Flex licensing model, which offers consumption-based subscriptions, has helped customers accelerate their transitions. In fiscal Q2, the company added 220 new Flex customers, bringing its total to 1,000.

CrowdStrike witnessed strong Falcon adoption, as evidenced by more than 75% utilization of the Flex contracts. Approximately 10% of customers also expanded their usage and capacity before their Flex contracts expired, resulting in an almost 50% increase in annual recurring revenue (ARR) for those accounts.

Solid demand for its cloud-native cybersecurity solutions and strength of the Falcon Flex model helped push the company's total ARR to $4.66 billion at the end of the fiscal second quarter, up 20% year over year. Management expects ARR to grow by 22% in fiscal 2026.

The increasing adoption of AI technologies is also helping CrowdStrike differentiate itself in the cybersecurity market. Charlotte, an AI-powered Security Operations Center (SOC) analyst embedded across the Falcon platform, automates repetitive security operations, detects threats, and autonomously responds as a human analyst would. CrowdStrike also expects to benefit from federal certifications that will enable it to sell its services to U.S. government clients.

CrowdStrike stock trades at an extremely rich valuation of 135 times expected forward earnings. But that premium is supported by its proven leadership in the mission-critical cybersecurity market, improving financials, and robust AI and data advantages. Hence, the stock remains a worthwhile pick even at high valuation levels.

Eli Lilly

Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) may not be a hot technology stock, but it is quietly reshaping the diabetes care and weight loss markets. In the second quarter, its revenues soared 38% year over year to $15.6 billion, driven mainly by the accelerating growth in the use of Mounjaro, an incretin mimetic prescribed for type 2 diabetes, and Zepbound, the identical medicine (generically called tirzepatide), but prescribed for chronic weight management.

U.S. prescriptions for these types of drugs, which mimic gut hormones, grew by 41% in the second quarter. Eli Lilly's products accounted for 57% of those prescriptions -- up by 3.8 percentage points sequentially. Despite the strong growth, the overall penetration of these drugs into their potential markets is still low, so they have solid growth prospects.

Eli Lilly has been dramatically expanding its production capacity to meet growing demand. The company produced 1.6 times as many salable tirzepatide doses in the first half of 2025 as in the prior-year period, and expects to ramp capacity even higher in the second half of 2025.

Eli Lilly is also advancing Orforglipron, a once-daily oral GLP-1 agonist that has demonstrated efficacy and safety comparable to the FDA-approved injectable drugs of this type in phase 3 clinical trials. The oral drug, if approved, will offer greater convenience to users and lower production costs to the pharma giant. The company is gearing up to make Orforglipron's first regulatory submissions by the end of 2025. The company is also testing another investigational therapy, Retatrutide, in multiple phase 3 trials for weight loss, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic diseases

Trading at around 24 times expected forward earnings, the stock looks expensive -- especially considering the market's generally weak sentiment toward the pharmaceutical sector. But in this case, it seems justified considering that analysts on average estimate that Eli Lilly's earnings per share will grow by 75.9% to $22.80 in 2025 and 32.8% to $30.40 in 2026. It is undeniable that the business faces risks. Candidates in its research and development pipeline might not pan out as well as hoped, and competitors could take market share from it with rival products. Still, with expanding demand in the diabetes care and weight loss indications, a robust drug portfolio, and strong financials, Lilly looks positioned as a long-term healthcare leader.

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Manali Pradhan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends CrowdStrike and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.