My 3 Favorite Stocks to Buy Right Now

There's never a bad time to buy a good stock, but some times are better than others. Finding a worthy name right now is particularly tricky, as the market is sending mixed messages.

If you're vexed by the situation, don't worry.

Here are three of my favorite prospects that just might make sense for your portfolio, as well.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. Roblox

You may think Roblox (NYSE: RBLX) is a video game -- and that's sort of true. It's not quite accurate in a very important way, though. The Roblox platform isn't a video game, but rather, an online platform in and of itself to build and play video games.

It would be more accurate to say Roblox is an assortment of millions of different video games created by more than 3 million different players/developers, and each gets paid for their efforts. Last year, the company dished out $923 million to its game makers.

It's a curious success story to anyone who understands the video game business. Interest in most new games is relatively short-lived, but Roblox has been growing its user base since launching in 2006. It engages with an average of more than 150 million players per day, as of September 2025 (up 70% year over year).

The model works specifically because its army of game designers are constantly coming up with new game-play ideas and concepts that no single company could ever come up with on their own. Players don't necessarily want complex or graphically stunning games -- they just want something fresh.

If there's one knock against Roblox, it's the lingering lack of profits, as the company still remains in the red after all these years. That's one of the chief reasons the company's shares tumbled following the recent release of its Q3 results. Not only did it suffer another loss, but Roblox also warned nervous investors that it could face growth headwinds in the coming year.

Just don't lose perspective on the matter. The company is playing a (very) long game, taking some lumps now in exchange for more growth later. It actually expects more players to play more often in the year ahead than analysts were anticipating.

Profits will materialize sooner or later. Even if it's more likely to be later, the time to dive in is now.

2. Roku

Roku (NASDAQ: ROKU) shares took a tumble recently following the release of its third-quarter results. It would be easy to presume the worst of the company, and to be fair, the streaming middleman's organic sequential revenue growth expected for the quarter now underway isn't thrilling. Device sales were also down just a bit year over year.

Take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Everything else Roku needs to do well is being done well.

Take Roku's platform (advertising and streaming app partnership) business as an example, which accounts for nearly 90% of its top line and all of the its profits. It grew 17% year over year, extending long-established trends.

The company also swung from an operating loss of nearly $36 million in Q3 of 2024 to an operating profit of $9.5 million this time around, pushing Roku even deeper out of the red and into the black. The total amount of time consumers spent using their Roku devices also grew 14% year over year, underscoring Roku's growing footprint within peoples' homes.

Separately but simultaneously, TV-ratings agency Nielsen says Roku's own free-to-watch, ad-supported streaming service The Roku Channel has quietly become one of the United States' most-watched streaming services, not far behind Amazon's Prime and ahead of Fox's Tubi and Paramount Skydance's Paramount+.

Simply put, there's no real reason to doubt CEO Anthony Wood's words: "Looking ahead, we are confident in our ability to deliver double-digit Platform revenue growth while increasing operating margins in 2026 and beyond."

The recent sell-off may have been the result of marketwide weakness that dragged down several other big names. If that's the case, it only adds some urgency to the argument for buying ROKU stock here.

3. Alibaba

Finally, you may know Alibaba Group (NYSE: BABA) as China's e-commerce powerhouse, which is still its biggest business when measured by revenue. It accounts for about two-thirds of the company's total top line and will remain an important profit center into the distant future. The company is well-positioned to capture at least a good share of the annualized growth of 10% that Mordor Intelligence expects of the country's e-commerce industry through 2030.

That's not the chief reason you might want to take a stake in this profitable company while its shares are priced at a reasonable 20 times its trailing-12-month earnings. The reason the vast majority of analysts covering this stock currently consider it a strong buy is Alibaba's foray into the artificial intelligence (AI)-chip business. With Beijing essentially making Nvidia-made AI processors off-limits in China, Alibaba has stepped up with its so-called T-Head parallel processing unit (or PPU), which performs quite comparably to Nvidia's H20 chip intended for sale to overseas customers.

The country's artificial intelligence industry is already embracing it. Morgan Stanley believes China's investments in AI now will break even by 2028 and produce a return of 52% on these expenditures by 2030. Separately but simultaneously, Goldman Sachs expects adoption of artificial intelligence among China's businesses to reach 30% by 2030, adding 20 to 30 basis points to whatever GDP growth the country was going to drive between now and then. Alibaba's nascent tech features prominently in this progress.

James Brumley has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Goldman Sachs Group, Nvidia, Roblox, and Roku. The Motley Fool recommends Alibaba Group. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.