Stock Market Turmoil: 2 Soaring Stocks to Buy Now (Hint: One Is Up 260% This Year)

Stocks declined as oil prices skyrocketed on Friday, June 13, after Israel attacked Iran, one of the largest oil producers in the world. Traders are worried the conflict will make gasoline more expensive. That would hurt the economy because cheaper gasoline is the primary reason inflation has been cooling. Reversing that trend would leave consumers with less spending money.

Additionally, many economists think that the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration will raise inflation in the coming months. The additive effect of more expensive oil and tariff-induced price increases could slow economic growth profoundly. However, patient investors have usually been well rewarded for buying dips in the U.S. stock market.

With that in mind, it makes sense to invest a small amount of cash today, then lean in more aggressively if the drawdown deepens. CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV) and MercadoLibre (NASDAQ: MELI) are worth buying. Here's why.

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CoreWeave: This artificial intelligence stock is up 260% year to date

CoreWeave offers cloud infrastructure and software services. Hyperscalers like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure provide similar products, but CoreWeave operates a dedicated graphics processing unit (GPU) cloud. That means its data centers are purpose-built to support artificial intelligence (AI) training and inference, as well as other demanding computing workloads that require acceleration.

CoreWeave has become adept at managing GPU clusters during its eight-year history, so much so that research organization SemiAnalysis recently ranked the platform as the best GPU cloud on the market. One reason for this is that CoreWeave regularly achieves top results at the MLPerf benchmarks, objective tests that measure the performance of AI systems.

CoreWeave reported impressive financial results in the first quarter. Revenue increased 420% to $981 million, and non-GAAP (non-generally accepted accounting principles) operating income (which excludes stock-based compensation and interest on debt) rose 550% to $162 million. Management also said its revenue backlog rose 63% to $25.9 billion, primarily due to a deal signed with OpenAI in March.

As a caveat, building data centers is expensive. CoreWeave has nearly $9 billion in debt on its balance sheet. The interest payments totaled $264 million in the first quarter, which led to a non-GAAP net loss of $150 million. But the company is judicious when it borrows money; it takes on debt only when a customer contract creates demand for more infrastructure and only if the contract more than covers the cost of the debt.

Importantly, CoreWeave shares have advanced 260% since its initial public offering (IPO) in March, and Wall Street generally views the stock as overvalued. The median target price of $69 per share implies 53% downside from its current share price of $147. But I think analysts are too pessimistic. The stock trades at 28 times sales. That is certainly not cheap, but I think the premium is reasonable for a company with triple-digit sales growth and a 73% gross margin.

MercadoLibre: This e-commerce stock is up 39% year to date

MercadoLibre operates the largest online marketplace in Latin America. It accounted for about 28% of regional retail e-commerce sales last year and is likely to account for 30% by 2026, according to eMarketer. Market share gains are evidence of a strong network effect, whereby the platform becomes increasingly attractive to consumers as more merchants list products, and vice versa.

MercadoLibre also provides adjacent solutions for payments, fulfillment, and advertising, making the marketplace even more attractive to merchants. The company boasts the fastest and most extensive logistics network in Latin America and ranks as the largest retail advertiser, with more than 50% market share. It also owns the largest fintech platform in Argentina, Chile, and Mexico, as well as the second-largest in Brazil.

MercadoLibre reported strong financial results in the first quarter. Revenue increased 37% to $5.9 billion on particularly strong revenue growth in the fintech business, which itself was due to strong adoption of credit cards, financing, and asset management products. Meanwhile, profit margin improved modestly, and GAAP net income increased 44% to $9.74 per diluted share.

Wall Street estimates MercadoLibre's earnings will increase by 36% annually through 2026. That makes the current valuation of 58 times earnings look reasonable. Wall Street has the same opinion. The median target price of $2,863 per share implies 20% upside from the current share price of $2,372.

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

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John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Trevor Jennewine has positions in Amazon and MercadoLibre. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, MercadoLibre, and Microsoft. 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.