The stock market has done incredibly well in 2024 and the S&P 500 is up 25% year to date. Luckily for investors looking to put capital into the market, things have cooled down in December, with the S&P down 1% since the start of the month. Looking even deeper, some companies face challenges that have pulled down their stock prices.
Hoping for a discount in the share price is only part of the equation for finding the best stocks to buy. Investors should also be searching for companies with competitive advantages and solid track records of success. Short-term challenges have created opportunities to buy shares in these two companies at a discount.
For investors with $1,000 to put to work in the market, buying one or both of these stocks could end up being a wise decision.
If you’ve opened a PDF file, you’ve used an Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) product. While this ubiquitous file type may be Adobe’s most well-known application, it’s the company’s creative suite that is the primary driver of the financial results. Products like Photoshop and Premiere Pro are industry standards for creative fields, even as competition has increased over time.
Proof of Adobe’s market position is evident in its financial results. Like all businesses, there are sometimes short-term bumps in the road, but over the long run, Adobe has been remarkably consistent. Consider revenue, net income, and free cash flow over the last five years.
ADBE Revenue (TTM) data by YCharts
While Adobe’s track record is impressive, investing is about the future and the biggest potential disruption to Adobe’s market dominance is artificial intelligence (AI). Many of the tasks creators would do within Adobe’s products can already be produced by AI, and the capabilities of AI are increasing every day.
Adobe has chosen to embrace this new technology and has been working hard to embed its AI product, Firefly, into its software suite. Rather than viewing AI as a replacement for Adobe’s products, the company believes it can be an assistant to the creative process by taking care of some of the more menial tasks,…
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