2 Growth Stocks to Invest $1,000 in Right Now

Don't let volatility rain on your investing parade. You can take advantage of the ups and downs to find great market opportunities in any climate. Even $1,000 can go a long way.

Recent pullbacks in Palantir (NASDAQ: PLTR) and Opendoor Technologies (NASDAQ: OPEN) could make this a good time to get in on some of this year's biggest gainers. They are dynamic and controversial but also frankly misunderstood companies. Let's take a closer look.

1. Palantir

You told yourself that you would wait to invest in Palantir when it got cheaper a year ago, only to see the stock nearly triple in that time. Maybe you felt the same way three years ago, and you're still kicking yourself about missing out on one of the few 20-baggers in that time.

Palantir isn't going to come to you. It doesn't work that way for the stock with the largest market cap to have more than doubled in 2025. There are pullbacks -- and the shares have retreated 17% since hitting another all-time high last week -- but that might be as good as it gets. It would take a massive crumbling of its fundamentals for you to be able to buy Palantir on your terms, and you probably wouldn't want Palantir in that scenario.

Image source: Getty Images.

Why is Palantir seemingly unstoppable? Its origin story may be more spy novel than financial game changer at first. Palantir offers software solutions used by the intelligence community to help crack codes for counterterrorism efforts. It has helped prevent -- or at least limit -- the impact of terrorist events across the world. However, its ability to spot data set patterns is proving to be lucrative for actual businesses.

Revenue rose 63% in the third quarter, which was reported last week. It's the strongest year-over-year jump in its five years of public trading. The key to the accelerating growth is its platform's popularity with commercial enterprises. Its U.S. government revenue rose a respectable 52%, but the real juice here is the 121% surge for its U.S. commercial revenue that now accounts for 45% of its U.S. revenue and more than a third of its total top-line results.

Can it get better? Sure. Palantir keeps inking beefy contracts with new and existing customers gaining an edge in business intelligence by leaning on Palantir's artificial intelligence (AI)-enhanced platform. It had $3.63 billion in U.S. commercial remaining deal value at the end of September, almost triple the backlog from a year earlier. The stock isn't cheap just because of the 17% slide since posting blowout results. You would be paying 113 times revenue -- yes, revenue -- at Thursday's closing price.

That's going to feel rich for many investors, but they also balked at the valuation when the multiples were lower for a Palantir that was growing more slowly.

2. Opendoor

If you think Palantir has been flying high this year, Opendoor is on a different level. The home-flipping specialist has more than quadrupled over the past year. The stock has also retreated 21% from its mid-September peak.

Unfortunately, for investors fueled by fundamentals, Opendoor isn't doing as well as its stock chart this year. Revenue is declining for the third year in a row. Trailing revenue is less than a third of where it was when its business peaked in 2022.

The rally is being fueled largely by its turn to be a meme stock. However, there's still a bullish argument to be made here for Opendoor earning its upticks. The housing market -- more specifically, the resale market where Opendoor operates -- is ripe for a turnaround. Existing home sales are 37% below where they were in early 2022, but the climate could be more inviting if mortgage rates ease in the coming months.

Naturally, a boom in inventory for resales would invite competition, but Opendoor is in a better place now than it was after two of the leading online real estate portals backed out of the market a couple of years ago. Opendoor's valuation will be hard to justify until it can get back to its 2022 revenue and on better margins.

Then again, just a whiff of good news could send this fixer-upper higher. More than 20% of Opendoor's outstanding shares are sold short. Any visibility on a clearer path to profitability can trigger a short squeeze, and that's before considering another wave of meme stock speculators jumping on the momentum trade.

Rick Munarriz has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Palantir Technologies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.