The U.S. equity market has been challenging for investors in 2025, weighed down by inflation, geopolitical tensions, and rising interest rates. Investors have also been concerned about the escalation of trade wars in an already uncertain macroeconomic environment.
However, such periods of high turbulence also offer astute investors a rare opportunity to pick up shares in attractive stocks that are trading at reasonable valuation levels.
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You do not need boatloads of capital to take advantage of this situation. All you need is $1,000 that is not required to pay bills or for contingencies. Here’s why investors can consider investing $1,000 in each of these stocks now.
1. Nvidia
Semiconductor giant Nvidia‘s (NVDA 0.28%) unrivaled 92% share in the $125 billion data center GPU market has positioned it as a dominant player in the rapidly evolving artificial intelligence (AI) market. Cloud service providers, regional cloud providers, and enterprises are increasingly adopting the company’s GPUs to build their AI infrastructure.
Furthermore, Nvidia’s recently launched Blackwell architecture chips are already showing strong momentum, with revenue of $11 billion recorded in the recent quarter. Blackwell systems, which are optimized for inferencing (real-time deployment) workloads, process reasoning workloads — another type of inferencing workload — at 25 times the speed and 20 times the cost efficiency of the previous generation Hopper 100 chips. Hence, Blackwell stands to benefit significantly from the increasing demand for recurring inferencing workloads across industries.
In addition to building a solid moat in AI hardware, Nvidia has also developed a comprehensive software ecosystem. This particularly includes Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA), a parallel computing platform, used to optimally program Nvidia’s GPUs.
While Nvidia’s stock price has been quite volatile in 2025, falling nearly 35% from its high in early January to its recent low in April, it has since increased by almost 39% to $135.29 (as of May 14). The surge in share price was driven by the company’s strategic partnership with Saudi Arabia, which will provide several hundred thousand of its advanced GPUs over the next five years.
The company has also demonstrated significant adaptability in response to the export controls for the Chinese market by developing compliant chips. Investor sentiment also improved after U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the U.S. and China have agreed to a 90-day pause on tariffs, which will result in U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods at 30% (instead of 145%) and Chinese duties on U.S. imports at 10% (instead of 125%). The U.S. government has also revoked the Biden-era AI diffusion rule, which would have restricted chip exports to 120 countries, starting May 15, 2025.
Despite the many tailwinds, Nvidia is trading at 25.4 times forward earnings, which is lower than its five-year average of 69.2 times. Hence, given its solid fundamentals and reasonable valuation, Nvidia may soar higher, especially after its first-quarter fiscal 2026 earnings results (scheduled for May 28).
2. Amazon
Amazon (AMZN 0.18%) reported strong first-quarter 2025 results, with revenue rising 9% year over year to $155.7 billion and operating income climbing 20% year over year to $18.4 billion.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is indisputably a significant growth catalyst for Amazon. The AWS cloud computing business reached an annualized revenue run rate of $117 billion. With more than 85% of global IT spending still allocated to on-premise infrastructure, AWS stands to benefit from the expected shift in spending toward the cloud over the next 10 to 20 years.
Amazon’s AI initiatives are also helping build new revenue streams. The company’s AI business has already reached a “multibillion dollar annual revenue run rate,” according to CEO Andy Jassy, and is growing at triple-digit percentages year over year.
Amazon is focused on developing a complete AI stack, including custom chips, foundational models, and AI applications. The company’s custom Trainium 2 chips offer 30% to 40% better price performance than competitors, leading to significant demand from enterprises keen on controlling costs for large AI workloads. Amazon also offers a wide range of high-performing foundational models from other AI providers, as well as its own Amazon Nova state-of-the-art foundation models through the fully managed Bedrock service, enabling customers to build their own generative AI applications. Finally, Amazon is also developing AI-powered agents capable of performing complex, multistep tasks.
Advertising is another understated catalyst for Amazon. Thanks to its broad customer reach and robust e-commerce platform, the company can effectively engage with its customers across multiple stages of the purchase journey. The company offers advertisers tools to reach targeted audiences across its entertainment properties, in live sports, audio content, and its e-commerce platform, as well as on external sites such as BuzzFeed and Pinterest.
Amazon’s retail operations are also benefiting from a rearchitected inbound network, driving better inventory placement, higher units per package, and lower delivery costs. The company is also working on other initiatives, such as expanding its same-day delivery sites and rural delivery network, as well as introducing robotics and automation to its facilities.
Finally, Amazon is also banking on its ambitious satellite internet initiative, Project Kuiper, to become a significant revenue catalyst. With recent successful satellite launches and two more expected through 2025, Kuiper positions Amazon to capture a substantial share of the satellite internet market estimated to be worth $108 billion by 2035.
Despite its strong fundamentals and multiple tailwinds, Amazon trades at approximately 28.6 times forward earnings, which is well below the five-year average of 53.6 times. Hence, it looks like a fantastic long-term buy now.