The Best Stocks to Invest $50,000 in Right Now

The tech-centric Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX: ^IXIC) has doubled over the last five years, which is quite amazing to think about. This included a pandemic, 40-year high inflation, and the recent tariff-driven sell-off in March.

The stock market is the greatest wealth-creating machine the world has ever known. As the Nasdaq's superior return shows, the tech sector is historically the place to find the most innovative companies that are bringing about change. When you invest on the right side of change, you're positioning yourself to build wealth.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing are megatrends that are pointing to profitable opportunities for investors who choose the right stocks. If you're looking to put $50,000 to work, here are two AI leaders that would make solid holdings as part of a well-rounded portfolio.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. Nvidia

After rocketing in 2023 and 2024, shares of Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) cooled off to start 2025. But spending on AI infrastructure is still ramping up, making the recent lull in the share price a great time to invest in the AI chip leader ahead of more growth.

Nvidia's recent quarterly earnings report showed that spending on AI infrastructure is continuing to grow rapidly. Despite taking a $4.5 billion charge for chip export restrictions to China, quarterly revenue surged 69% year over year to $44 billion.

CEO Jensen Huang described global demand for his company's AI computing solutions as "incredibly strong." Its new Blackwell platform is experiencing the fastest production ramp-up in the company's history, which drove a 73% year-over-year increase in data center revenue last quarter.

There are several tech companies, including some of its customers, that are designing their own custom AI chips. But Nvidia's advantage is in building complete computing systems, including the interconnects that speed up data transfer among chips. The complexity of building these computing platforms gives Nvidia a competitive edge.

AI is sweeping across every industry and geography, and Nvidia is in a great position to benefit. It's highly profitable, generating $76 billion in trailing-12-month earnings on $148 billion of revenue. By the end of the decade, Huang expects his company to control a large share of the $1 trillion that will be spent annually on data centers.

Image source: Getty Images.

2. Microsoft

Shares of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) are surging following its quarterly results. The software giant has redefined itself in the last 10 years as a top cloud services provider. This strategy has positioned it to capitalize on growing demand for AI services in the cloud.

Revenue from Microsoft Cloud grew 22% year over year on a constant-currency basis to $42 billion last quarter. Its Azure cloud enterprise service saw accelerating growth, as businesses are rushing to adopt AI to reduce costs, increase productivity, and accelerate innovation.

Microsoft saw a massive uptick in the amount of data being processed for AI workloads. The number of tokens, or units of data processed for AI, increased to more than 100 trillion -- a fivefold jump over the year-ago quarter.

Management said that it processed more than 50 trillion tokens in the month of April alone, indicating accelerating use of its services for model building and data analysis.

There are more than 10,000 organizations using Microsoft's Azure AI Foundry service for building and deploying AI agents. Agentic AI is expected to see tremendous demand because it is smart enough to think through all the steps needed to solve a problem without a human prompt. Microsoft's AI foundry puts the company in a great position to capitalize on the budding demand for this incredible technology.

The company earned $96 billion in trailing profit on $270 billion of revenue. It can afford to open more data centers around the world and deploy thousands of Nvidia Blackwell chips to meet demand for its services. This makes the stock a solid investment.

Should you invest $1,000 in Nvidia right now?

Before you buy stock in Nvidia, consider this:

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*Stock Advisor returns as of June 9, 2025

John Ballard has positions in Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Microsoft and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.