Normally, you get the Best Buys Now on the 15th of every month. The 15th this time was a Sunday. You already got the Overview of the Week there. Yesterday the markets were closed because of Presidents’ Day. So that’s why I’m only releasing them today, on the 17th.

This is also an exceptional Best Buys Now in another sense.

Because... what do you do when there are too many great opportunities you want to include in the Best Buys Now? You stay in analysis paralysis. I couldn’t choose this time, so I kept tinkering and kept getting stuck.

Five Best Buys Now felt impossible right now. So for once, I took 10.

I won’t make this a recurring thing. I plan to go back to five. But this time, even 10 felt like a serious constraint. I had to leave out companies I like. I’m talking about Datadog. I’m talking about Mercado Libre. I’m talking about Chapters Group. None of them made the list. That’s how deep the bench is right now. In other months they would have been here.

So, this article will be a bit longer than usual.

Let’s dive in.

Duolingo

If you remember the basics of Potential Multibaggers, we could go to the list of multibagger features, and the first one is revenue growth. The reason is this chart. Sales growth is by far the most important contributor to long-term share performance.

Last quarter, Duolingo (DUOL) reported 41% revenue growth.

Now, that will be lower this quarter, and that’s partly because the company wants it to be lower. They’re shifting focus away from monetization toward content quality and the free tier to attract more users. Despite this strategic choice, the consensus for Q4 is still almost 32% revenue growth. That’s not a number you see from companies in trouble.

The stock price is down about 80% from its high.

I didn’t buy when the stock was so expensive. It was an exaggeration to the upside. What we see right now is an exaggeration to the downside.

The market also underestimates that Duolingo is changing. It’s not just a language app anymore. I picked it not because of language learning but because I thought it could become a learning platform. In the meantime, Duolingo has rolled out math, music, and chess. I think there’s a lot of potential left for other courses.

Why not coding, for example? I would love that. Because even in these days of AI, when I vibe code things, the problem is that I don’t understand what I’ve done. It would be great if, almost like with a language, you know enough of the basics to spot the big mistakes. I’m not talking about the nitty-gritty details, but the reasoning errors that you can weed out.

Now, let me emphasize an element that is often overlooked. When you look back at the history of disruption, there’s an important lesson. The disrupted company was usually one that didn’t want to, or could not, adapt to the new reality or technology. Netflix versus Blockbuster is the iconic example, of course. Blockbuster didn’t start adapting to streaming until it was much too late. There were discussions in the executive room, but because it had so many stores, there was a huge cost to turn the company and bet everything on innovation.

Duolingo is not in that case. It embraces AI. It’s probably one of the biggest users of OpenAI tokens. At the end of 2025, a Reddit leak revealed the largest individual users, and Duolingo ranked at the top.

Look at how Duolingo built its chess course: it was developed by two people who weren’t real chess players and weren’t even developers, using AI. Only just before launch, an actual developer helped polish the code.

I don’t see a company that’s being disrupted here. I see a company with a lot of users who use it every single day to not lose their streak, who have a friends streak (and they don’t want to disappoint their friends), and who have the feeling that they’re learning something.

I think too many people who are not Duolingo users see it as learning. I don’t see it as learning in the sense of studying. That’s a totally different activity. I see it as a game. And that game takes away a big part of my scrolling time. I don’t go through my Instagram feed anymore. The only time I use Instagram now is when someone sends me a link. I used to check Instagram every single day. Now, I play (see that word?) Duolingo.

Duolingo is not a deep learning platform. If you want to go deep into a subject, you go to YouTube, to your preferred LLM, to Google, to Substack, to Seeking Alpha, just to name a few. You go to places where you’ll get top-notch information and where you expect to need time to digest it.

That’s not the intention of Duolingo. Duolingo is fun. It’s short. It’s engaging. And it gives you the very basics of something. If you expect to speak about investing in Spanish after a Spanish Duolingo course, your expectations are ridiculous.

I keep pounding the table for Duolingo. Also don’t forget there’s a visionary CEO at the helm. Luis von Ahn successfully developed two previous products: CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA. He gave CAPTCHA to Yahoo for free, sold reCAPTCHA to Google for a few hundred million, and then wanted to realize his dream. He grew up in Guatemala as the son of two doctors, which meant an outstanding education. But he saw that he was lucky and that very few people could afford it. That’s why he wants to provide free education to help people climb the social ladder.

And look, I hear many investors say, “But AI can translate. So why learn a language?” There are multiple reasons to learn languages, even with AI. Making real connections with people is one. Climbing the social ladder is another reason, because speaking more languages is seen as more prestigious. And people like the idea they develop. Sometimes, it’s as simple as that.

For a long time already, a computer can play chess better than any human, but still, chess was the fastest-growing course on Duolingo ever.

The case for Duolingo is extremely pessimistic right now, and in my opinion, that’s totally unwarranted.

Let’s look at the valuation. As you know, I use this framework.

I would place Duolingo between high growth and mature growth and that’s actually very conservative. I want to start with the EV/Gross profit ratio.

At 5.9, it’s the lowest ever. I bought in September 2022 at $93 and then, the EV/Gross profit was around 10, which I already found very cheap for a company growing so fast.

Because of the one-time tax benefit this year, the (forward) PE or PEG are not really of much use. Let’s go to the forward P/FCF. As the company has not yet announced its Q4 2025 earnings, this is based on estimates of 2025 FCF.

The 2025 EV/EBITDA multiple is about the same.

(Do you want to make these insightful charts yourself? No problem. Use my link for a 15% discount for Fiscal. )

Now, of course, if Duolingo misses the consensus, the stock could drop even more. But who’s wrong in that case? The company or the analysts? Duolingo clearly said it would focus less on monetization.

On the other hand, it only missed once on EPS and revenue combined.

Also know that management is very conservative. It guided for 29.5% revenue growth in 2025 at the end of 2024. The consensus now? 37.5%.

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Sometimes the market collectively jumps on a narrative and forgets to look at the numbers.

That seems to be happening right now. Many of the companies in this Best Buys Now list are down significantly, all with seemingly logical reasons. But do those reasons actually hold up? We will look.

The funny thing is that many people are afraid when the stock already dropped 70% and are overjoyed when the stock is at an all-time high. The risks are perceived much higher when a stock is down significantly from its high.

Good investors try to turn that logic around. When this Warren Buffett quote comes up, everybody nods in agreement.

The problem is that while most agree in theory, they come up with all kinds of excuses in practice. They hear the stories that other people tell and they assume they must be true, as the stock price “proves” this.

Of course, stories can be true but more often they are not. The funny thing is that the market is always very early. Many investors remember stories about this stock or that that went down, but they doubled down and the market was right in the end. Think of Peloton, Teladoc, Zoom and many others. But there are even more stocks that drop for a certain time period and just recover. The story was not false.

Unfortunately, to many, this is not as obvious because the overarching story after the stock has returned to new highs is one of strength, and the stories of when the stock was down significantly are swept under the rug.

There are quite a few beaten-down stocks in this Best Buys Now and that means it could go wrong for some. And I don’t believe the story will change anytime soon. Stories can be very persistent and even survive facts that prove the opposite. For years, a stock can be undervalued because of a certain narrative. But I’m patient and I know that the upside can be very rewarding over the long term.

But enough theory, let’s go to the Best Buys Now.

1. Duolingo: Engagement Is the Key

Price: $156.27

Duolingo has dropped sharply from its peak. 71.1%.

The reasons you read everywhere? Slowing growth and AI as a threat. Let’s take a closer look at both.

That growth is slowing is true. But that’s simply math. A company can’t keep growing at 70% every year. The bigger you get, the harder it is to maintain those same percentages. Economists call this the law of large numbers. It sounds alarming when growth slows, but in absolute terms, the company is still growing like crazy.

Then AI. This is where many investors make a thinking error. They assume Duolingo is a content company and that AI can easily replicate that content. But the content for learning languages has been freely available on the internet for decades. That’s not the problem Duolingo solves.

The real problem? Motivation. How do you make sure people actually keep learning?

Look at Coursera, a platform full of high-quality courses. Only 3 to 5 percent of users complete a course. The rest drop off somewhere along the way. That’s the problem Duolingo has cracked. They’ve built a machine that brings people back every day.

I know this myself very well. I could have learned chess through YouTube, through online courses. I could have refreshed my Italian with other courses and I tried, but never stuck to it longer than two weeks.

But my daily chess lesson on Duolingo? I’ve been doing that for months without missing a day. The same goes for Italian, Latin, and music theory, which I all do on Duolingo. Not because the content is better, but because it simply feels more fun than mindlessly scrolling through social media.

That’s why I have a streak of

Copying that engagement is much harder than it looks. Can a competitor do it? Sure, that risk exists with any company. But so far, no one has pulled it off, except for Duolingo.

What Wall Street also doesn’t like: Duolingo is investing heavily in the business. Management has three levers to pull: content, users, and monetization. They’re deliberately prioritizing the first two right now. That means profits aren’t maximized in the short term, but it’s the right long-term strategy. Users first, money later.

And then there’s the argument that AI will soon offer real-time translation, so you won’t need to learn languages anymore. That argument is honestly a bit absurd. Google Translate has existed for years and people still want to learn languages. Plus, chess was the fastest-growing course on the platform. And chess has no practical use at all. People don’t just learn out of necessity, they also learn for fun.

What I would like to see: programming on Duolingo. Python, or maybe AI-assisted coding. Not because AI can’t do that, but precisely because it’s useful to understand what that code actually does when an AI tool spits it out for you.

I think the negativity for Duolingo could last for a while, but the stock is attractive now for long-term investors.

2. Topicus: Vertical Software Doesn’t Just Disappear

Price: $84.33 or CAD $117.88

Topicus (TOI:CA) (TOITF), the Dutch subsidiary of Constellation Software listed on the Canadian stock exchange, took another hit today. The stock’s now down almost 40% since its all-time high just 6 months ago.

Once again, the AI story is the culprit. The story goes that AI will make the specialized software that Topicus acquires and manages obsolete.

Let’s take a step back. What does Topicus actually do? The company buys what’s called vertical market software. That’s software built for a very specific niche: school administration, prison management, municipal services, that sort of thing. Not sexy products, but absolutely essential for the organizations that use them.

The bear case is that AI tools will replace this software. But here critics are making the same mistake as with Duolingo: they’re focusing on the technology and forgetting about the distribution.

Imagine this.

You are a clerk working at a small town in Belgium, let’s say Maldegem (where I live). There are about 24,000 inhabitants.

You have been using Cipal Schaubroeck for over twenty years, just like your colleagues. Most have never known anything else.

Here comes this 24-year-old kid into your office. He claims to have better software, vibecoded with AI, that will replace your Cipal Schaubroeck bookkeeping and official notetaking software. It will be so much better, dude!

What you think as a clerk is simple:

* How about the security?

* How about compliance?

* Will this be up all the time?

* How long will it take to retrain the full team?

* How much will it cost to implement?

* How will we rip CP’s software out of the whole system?

* How will I sell this to my boss?

* Our software is less than 0.5% of our total cost, is it worth taking that risk?

I could go on, but I think you get the point.

Topicus bought Cipal Schaubroeck earlier this year. And no, it won’t grow that much organically. New towns just don’t get born every day. But with some pricing power, it will grow organically, probably 2% above the inflation or so.

That’s the kind of companies Topicus invests in. And that’s why AI is much less of a threat than most people think.

Can AI play a role over time? Absolutely. And the smartest software companies will integrate AI into their existing products. But that’s very different from AI completely taking over this market. There are too many practical objections: compliance, reliability, ease of use, and simply the cost of switching. The software is usually less than 1% of the total cost, but if you have to retrain your employees, that cost is much higher.

The story sounds logical, but the facts don’t support it.

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It’s the 15th of the month and you know what that means: the Best Buys Now!

For newer Multis (hi, there!), just a quick update. Since May 2022, I have picked 5 stocks every month.

Up to now, the results have been good. In the first three years, the picks have outperformed the S&P 500 by more than 20%.

Illustration made with Nano Banana

Now, just to set the expectations straight, the picks usually start by not performing great. I tend to pick stocks that are a bit out of favor. And that trend sometimes continues for months. Then suddenly, they can shoot up after a good earnings release or some other good news.

That’s also why many picks come back for months in a row. In 2024, for example, I picked NU Holdings 10 times out of 12. Right now, the stock is up considerably for these picks.

So, if the price doesn’t change and the fundamental outlook remains strong, I keep adding the stock to the Best Buys Now. That means there’s often quite some overlap between the months, but that’s also the reason why the stocks outperform the S&P 500. Patience, equanimity and fundamentals over stock moves, that’s what makes you outperform over the long term.

While the average of the months outperforms the S&P 500 by a wide margin, that doesn’t go for each month, of course.

Also important is that there will always be losers and outsized winners. It’s funny that some people comment, “Yeah, but without that big winner, you would only match or underperform the S&P 500.” Well, that’s exactly how investing works. Even if you look at the S&P 500, the growth comes from a very limited group of stocks.

This is from June 2022, probably the biggest outperforming selection.

As you can see, if you take out Nvidia and Cloudflare, it would underperform the S&P 500 by quite a large margin. But that’s exactly the system. It’s not a coincidence I picked these stocks. And it was definitely not the only time I picked them.

By the way, I also want to show you the worst month, just to even it out. Commercially, that’s probably an awful mistake, but whatever. I want to keep it real.

As you can see, this selection from August 2022 (just two months after the best BBNs) is still up 39%, but it’s underperforming the S&P 500 by almost 20% and the Nasdaq by 45%.

If you are one of the people who do not take anything for granted, you are like me. That’s why all subscribers can see all of the Best Buys Now and follow them live.

Some people may even have seen that the price for PubMatic is ‘not correct.’ The stock now trades at about $9. But this $15.33 is the price at which I sold the stock. So, that was a good sell decision. By the way, this is also the only time ever that I have removed a stock from the Best Buys Now. I replaced Sea Ltd. with ASML, but I still calculate the 15% loss on SE in the average.

It’s funny, in a way, that I dedicate so much time to this underperforming Best Buys Now, because there are multiple times more winners than losers. And psychology shows that people losers feel 3 or 4 times more than winners. So, I should probably show you another 5 winning months. But I don’t want to do that. The 20% outperformance on average per pick should tell you more than enough and if it doesn’t, well, so be it.

Let’s start with the picks.

1. The Trade Desk

Price: $36.19

Two weeks ago, I published The Trade Desk’s earnings analysis, how high the Quality Score is, and how attractive the valuation is. The stock was at $38.61, it’s now even lower, at $36.19. That means it’s now down 74%.

It’s normal that there’s extra downside pressure in the last weeks. There’s a lot of tax-loss harvesting, where people sell their losers to offset their winners.

This time last year, the stock was worth $100 more. It’s the biggest drop since going public almost 10 years ago. The market sees slowing growth and Amazon competition. I see a company still executing trading at its cheapest valuation in 7.5 years.

Revenue grew 17.7% YoY to $739M. That looks weak compared to last year’s 27% growth. But political spending distorts the picture. Excluding political spend, growth was 22%, both last year and this year.

The Trade Desk revamped its entire C-suite and launched transformative AI improvements. Its Kokai platform now delivers 26% better cost per acquisition, 58% better cost per unique reach, and 94% better click-through rates than the old system. 85% of customers have already adopted it.

OpenPath is revolutionizing the advertising supply chain by creating direct, transparent connections.

At an EV/Gross Profit of less than 8, The Trade Desk trades at its cheapest level since May 2018.

You can read the full article here.

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On the 15th of every month, I publish my ‘Best Buys Now’, five handpicked stocks from my entire investing universe (not just Potential Multibaggers) that I believe are especially attractive at that moment.

And the results are amazing.

In the first three years after the launch, the selection has beaten the S&P 500 by 26.5% per stock.

I can’t guarantee that I can keep up that outperformance. Of course not. Just two weeks ago, it was an outperformance of more than 30%. That’s how fast things move.

And also don’t forget that many of my picks initially didn’t move much. That’s exactly the pattern, actually. It took a while before the sentiment caught up with the fundamentals. In the stock market, being right can feel wrong for a surprisingly long time.

Unlike what some value investors think, my stocks are not ‘momentum stocks.’ They are carefully selected stocks to hold for the long term.

Just like Warren Buffett, my favorite holding position is forever. That means that I hold as long as the thesis still stands. That can be the original thesis, or an updated one. You have to be flexible there. Cloudflare as the ‘connecting cloud’? I hadn’t seen that one coming when I picked the stock in early 2020 at $39. But it’s a full part of the thesis now.

No buy low, sell high but buy low and hold for a very long time. Ideally, until it’s a multibagger multiple times over.

Having said that, let’s go to the Best Buys Now for this month. I ordered them by market cap, from big to smaller.

1. Mercado Libre

Price: $2018.08

Mercado Libre (MELI) remains attractive.

I have already shared this stat earlier, but some may have missed it.

Marcos Galperin, the founder and (still) CEO of Mercado Libre (until the end of this year), posted this on X.

That’s fantastic. Almost 7 years of 30%+ revenue growth. Something very important in investing is the CAP or the Competitive Advantage Period. I think that of Mercado Libre is very long. I have said this before and I will repeat it here: I could see Mercado Libre become the first trillion+ company in Latin America.

That would mean it would be a tenbagger from here, as it has a market cap of around $100 billion now.

Of course, that will take time.

But 27 quarters of 30% revenue growth shows, as the only one of 83,000 publicly traded companies in the whole world, that shows what an incredible beast Mercado Libre is.

And valuation? Well, price to operational cash flow has always been a great metric for retail companies, no matter their nature.

Just look at this chart, for example.

As you can see, Amazon’s stock price has followed its operational cash flow quite closely. And you can also see why I made Amazon a Best Buys Now last month and I still think it’s interesting now. Operational cash flow is expected to surge and if history is a guide, the stock price will follow.

But look at the P/OCF ratio for Mercado Libre and Amazon.

As you can see, Amazon is almost double as expensive as Mercado Libre, which only trades at 10.5 times operational cash flow.

Or, with another chart, you can see the stock price and the operational cash flow for Mercado Libre and how undervalued it looks.

Mercado Libre looks to be in hibernation around that $2000 level it trades at right now. That’s great for knowledgeable investors with patients. And isn’t that the definition of Multis? :-)

2. Sea Limited

Price: $138.93

Another one that returns.

The most recent earnings were very strong for Sea Limited (SE). The analysis will follow soon.

Why the price dropped? First, there were definitely people taking profits and secondly, it just followed the general market.

I’ve been holding the stock since it traded at $54, 5.5 years ago. It’s one of the most impressive companies I have seen in my investing career, but also probably one of the most misunderstood.

Sometimes, I read The Straits Times, a Singaporean newspaper. It’s the most popular newspaper in Singapore and for being the most popular one, it’s remarkably high quality.

But when I read about Sea Ltd. it’s clear that they don’t understand the company. To my knowledge, there has never been a company from Singapore that acts like Sea Ltd. It is focused on the long term and is not shy about investing. That means, of course, that it’s not optimizing for profitability.

In the newspaper and with some of the people I talk to who live in Singapore, I see skepticism about the company’s performance. The mainstream investor in Singapore seems to want very high profitability at the cost of growth, preferably with a dividend on top of that.

Now, many people in Singapore don’t agree with this, but I don’t read their voices in The Straits Times. But many Multis are from Singapore and they are some of the best and most loyal Multis. So, a big shout-out to you all! The next time there’s a Multis get-together in Singapore, I’ll try to be there, I promise.

These Singaporean Multis often know more about investing than the mainstream press. I even think that’s the case worldwide, but in Singapore, the gap may be even bigger. They know what Amazon has done and what it took Amazon to get where it is today. And they see that Sea is implementing the same strategies in another part of the world. But that requires long-term thinking, unfortunately, not something many (press) people are capable of nowadays. Lee Kuan Yew built Singapore through a long-term vision and see how it thrives. Sure, you could criticize some of the elements, but don’t miss the forest for the trees. He brought Singapore from the Third World to the First.

To me, Forrest Li stands at the same level as Jeff Bezos. Of course, Bezos is much more well-regarded now. But at the time, he was often controversial too. You may remember this headline.

That text too:

The idea that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has pioneered a new business paradigm is silly. He’s just another middleman, and the stock market is beginning to catch on to that fact. The real winners on the Net will be firms that sell their own products directly to consumers. Just look at Sony, Dell and Bertelsmann.

This is what I sometimes think when I read the articles of the mainstream press about Sea. To put it mildly, they are very uninformed.

And one of the things you see many investors grab to (often supported by the mainstream press) is that SEA has a high PE because that’s the only valuation metric they use.

And yes, SEA has a PE of almost 60.

For a company in maturity, they would be right. However, they lack the expertise to value growth stocks. This is my framework.

Sea had 38.3% revenue growth. Would you classify that as a company in maturity? Because, that’s the only time a company should be judged on a PE basis.

I would argue (and if you don’t agree, you should have very convincing arguments) that SEA is still in high growth. Or back in high growth is probably more accurate. It saw that the market wanted profitability in 2022, it turned around impressively in two quarters. It went from losing $1B per quarter for high growth, to GAAP profitability in just two quarters. That’s still the most impressive thing I’ve seen any business leader do. It took Jeff Bezos 2 years to do the same when the public wanted proof Amazon could be profitable in the dotcom bust. Forrest Li beat Jeff Bezos by 6 quarters. Impressive, yet many still don’t know this.

Then, when it was profitable, Sea turned again and announced that it would invest in growth again, but remain profitable. And again, they did. I mean, 38.3% revenue growth at that size? That’s again top-notch execution, and again, most miss it.

That’s why I don’t care for the company’s misses on EPS. I want it to invest as much as possible. If they see opportunities, turn on the money faucet. And mind you, the company remains impressively profitable (yes, again, on a GAAP basis as well).

So, let’s judge it on EV/Gross profit, the best metric for the high-growth stage.

At just 8 times EV/Gross profit, Sea looks cheap.

But, it’s also a retailer. So, let’s judge it on P/OCF, as we did with Amazon and Mercado Libre earlier.

As you can see, it’s a bit more expensive on this metric. But I consider 18x OCF for this high growth still very reasonable.

But, unlike Mercado Libre and Amazon, Sea Limited has not been OCF profitable for a long time, just two years. So, it’s not optimized for that yet.

Overall, I’m happy the market sells off Sea Limited again and I’ll add to my position. I don’t know what it will do over the short term, but with such fantastic management, that controls its business so well, I’m convinced that it’s still an excellent investment for the long term.

On to the next three companies. They are more or less of the same size, quite a bit smaller than Mercado Libre (with a market cap of $100 billion) and Sea Limited (which is worth about $75B).

But I want to be clear. I think that all 5 of these stocks still have 10x potential.

If you are a free reader, this is where the content stops for you.

If you want full access to Potential Multibaggers, here’s what you’ll get:

✅ My full portfolio (with every transaction)
✅ All the picks (with two new ones just out)
✅ Access to our private chat group
✅ Best Buys Now (outperforming the market by 30% (!) over 3 years.)
✅ Deep dives on earnings, with a Quality Score and Valuation Score, so you know if the stock’s a buy, hold or sell.

Of course, I know that investing in Potential Multibaggers is spending money. But what if it brings you more money than it costs? That’s called investing. Potential Multibaggers may be a great investment for you.

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It’s the 15th of the month, and if you have been here for a while, you know what that means: The Best Buys Now.

If you are new, don’t make the mistake of thinking that I select these stocks to hold them for a little while and sell them again. All of these are meant to hold for the long term.

No buy low, sell high but buy low and hold for a very long time. Ideally, until it’s a multibagger multiple times over.

And the system works. The Best Buys Now were started in May 2022. In the first years, the picks have outperformed the Nasdaq by 14.61% and the S&P 500 by a whopping 30.1% per pick.

I can’t guarantee that I can keep up that pace. Of course not. And also don’t forget that many of these initially didn’t do much. That’s exactly the pattern, actually. It took a while before the sentiment caught up with the fundamentals. In the stock market, being right can feel wrong for a surprisingly long time.

Having said that, let’s go to the Best Buys Now for October. This time, I ordered them by market cap, from big to smaller.

1. Amazon

Price: $215.57

This may be a surprise to some, but I’m very bullish on Amazon (AMZN). Apart from Apple, it’s the worst-performing Mag7 stock over the last year.

But I think investors underestimate Amazon now like they underestimated Google for a long time.

Don’t forget that Amazon still has the biggest cloud with AWS, which has a market share of about 30%, far before Microsoft’s Azure, at about 20% and Google Cloud at about 13%. The rest’s not even on the picture. I know what you will say: Azure and Google Cloud are growing faster. But Amazon was very clear in its conference call: the company had more demand than supply. In other words, more customers would have used more AWS, but compute and energy shortage made it impossible to fulfill this demand.

AWS generates $116 billion in revenue, which is just 17% of Amazon’s $670 billion total, yet it contributes 56% of the operating income: $42.8 billion of $76.2 billion. And you should expect 20%+ growth for years to come.

But Amazon has more than just AWS to make investors happy. Think of its logistics, which give it an insurmountable competitive advantage. Amazon now has 28% of the US market share and it will soon be the biggest.

This is very impressive. It’s a physical moat and those are very strong. It gives Amazon a cost advantage and much bigger speed, both of which are crucial in e-commerce.

There’s also advertising. It is now the third-largest advertising platform, after only Google and Meta. And just like AWS, this is high-margin revenue. With its huge collection of data, with 300 million Prime subscribers, of which Amazon can see all they buy, search for, watch, and put on their watchlist, Amazon can target ads very effectively.

Those 300 million Prime subscribers also provide predictable revenue with very low churn.

Something that’s also not appreciated enough about Amazon, in my opinion, is its huge expertise in robotics. The company has deployed more than 1 million robots in its fulfillment centers. That makes it the world’s largest manufacturer and operator of mobile robotics. It could be several years out, but I think AI-driven robots (think of Tesla’s Optimus) will be the next big breakthrough. With all of Amazon’s expertise, I would be surprised if the company doesn’t lead the way there too.

And yet, Amazon trades near the lows of its historic valuation. This is the forward P/OCF (price/operational cash flow, which has historically been a good way to value retailers, including Amazon).

I like Amazon at this price and tomorrow, I’ll add to my position. Right now, I think Amazon is the most compelling Mag7 stock.

2. Mercado Libre

Price: $2048.32

I’ll warn you. In a few months, you might regret this.

I’ve seen the pattern so often. A stock trades sideways for a long time and even generally patient investors lose their patience. It goes up a bit and then drops again, often on no news. The stock’s essentially flat from a year ago.

In the same period, the S&P 500 is up 13.8% and the Nasdaq even 22.5%. That’s the stuff investors get really nervous about.

But it’s also the stuff that makes the Best Buys Now outperform the S&P 500 by 30% per pick on average.

Often, my Best Buys Now picks underperform in the first few months... Until they don’t. Suddenly, they explode and don’t look back.

That’s when investors lament that they didn’t buy, didn’t buy more or even sold. I think that could be the case here too. That’s why wanted to start with this warning. I’ve seen the pattern so often in the past. The formula is simple.

A GREAT COMPANY + WEAK PRICE ACTION = OPPORTUNITY

Mercado Libre (MELI) has been a phenomenal company for a very long time.

Maybe investors are a bit more pessimistic about the Q3 numbers that will be released in two weeks (on October 29). After all, Mercado Libre cut its free delivery threshold from R$79 to R$19 (about $3.5) and that will definitely eat into the company’s margins. On top of that, Amazon is aggressive in Brazil, waiving merchant fees for three months, including the crucial holiday period.

But Amazon has been trying to break Mercado Libre’s market leadership for 12 years already, and it hasn’t succeeded. Why do you think it would succeed now? I’ve been saying this for years already, but the Brazilian e-commerce market will be dominated by three players: Mercado Libre, Amazon and Sea’s Shopee. All the rest will be small or even disappear.

And, dear reader, Mercado Libre is cheap right now.

This is how I value stocks, depending on the stage they are in.

With a company that grew its revenue by 34% in the previous quarter and expected to have 35%+ revenue growth in the next two, it’s not a stretch to argue that Mercado Libre is still in high-growth mode. So, let’s first look at EV/gross profit. This is the chart.

(PS: if you want to make similar insightful charts, you can do that with this 15% Fiscal discount)

As you can see, the EV/Gross profit is just 9.33. That’s cheap. You could argue that it has been cheap since the big tech drop in 2022. Remember that the Nasdaq was down 36% then. I could only say that’s correct.

Your conclusion may be that this is a sucker stock. But look at what the stock has done since 2022, when it first got this valuation.

So, sear this into your brain: this stock is up 222%, but the valuation has more or less stayed the same as when the whole market, and especially the Nasdaq, where Mercado Libre trades, was in a bear market. To me, this screams opportunity. I’m happy to make MELI my biggest position at this valuation.

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FYI: the average Best Buys Now pick performs 30.1% better than the S&P 500 (from May 2022 to May 2025). So, an investment in Potentials Multibaggers could pay off.

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It’s the 15th of the month, and you know what that means: Best Buys Now time.
Unless the 15th falls on a weekend, this is the day you get my highest-conviction ideas based on quality and long-term value.

I started publishing Best Buys Now in May 2022, and from then until May 2025, so a period of three years, the picks have outperformed the S&P 500 by almost 30% on average per pick. That’s measured at the moment of writing, on September 15. It beats the Nasdaq by more than 16%.

So, you’re probably curious to know what this month’s five Best Buys are.
Before we dive in, let me repeat something important:

These are not short-term trades.
They’re long-term holds, companies I believe in for years, not months.

Quality is always the first filter.
Valuation is the second.
I look for fantastic businesses trading at prices that make sense today, with a long runway ahead.

Let’s get into it.

Here are the five Best Buys Now!

Subscribe to unlock this month’s 5 Best Buys Now and get access to my real portfolio, the community, and a special surprise later this week.

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It's the 15th of the month and you know what that means: The Best Buys Now. And if you didn't know (because you are new or forgot the date), you saw it in the title, haha.

Let me repeat that the Best Buys Now are NOT stocks that I think have the most upside over the short term. They balance out quality and long-term value at the current price.

They were away for a few months, simply because I couldn't find enough attractive opportunities: the To Consider stocks. So, this 35th installment of the Best Buys Now (almost three years) brings you 8 stocks that I see as attractive.

8 for the price of 5, who wouldn't want that as a bargain, right? That's what you get here.

But without further ado, let's jump right in.

1. The Trade Desk

Is anyone surprised that The Trade Desk (TTD) is a Best Buys Now choice? After my analysis of the earnings and the valuation and Quality Score updates in this article, I think many Multis expected TTD here.

Most of the information I want you to know is in the two articles I linked aboveI have one more thing to add. It was brought out by The Information that Walmart renegotiated its deal with The Trade Desk from exclusive to non-exclusive. Again, as so often, the headlines were very deceiving. This is an example:

The title makes it seem like Walmart stepped away completely. Just to be sure, this was already renegotiated last year, not this year.

But even that must be put in context. Walmart and The Trade Desk signed an exclusive deal for four years in 2021. That deal was about to expire, so it had to be renegotiated. And it was. Not exclusive anymore, but still Walmart is an important partner for The Trade Desk. It simply means that Walmart can also use other platforms to buy ads.

During the conference call, Jeff Green said this:

In Q2, a record amount of spend was influenced by retail data, both on our platform and on the Walmart DSP, as more shopper marketing budgets flow into programmatic,

The Information report suggests Walmart could now work with Amazon. I think that shows there's a lack of insight here. Do you really think Walmart will share its anonymized customer insights with its biggest competitor? That's also what Jeff Green talked about when he said that Amazon is no real competitor for The Trade Desk.

There's a lot of noise out there about The Trade Desk and that's an advantage for long-term investors. Sure, the stock price of The Trade Desk could remain under pressure for a while, but I like extended periods in which I can add to my position.

2. Adyen
I’ve already done a full breakdown of the quarter. Let’s just say: 20%+ revenue growth, 50%+ EBITDA margins, and still misunderstood.

3. Duolingo
Everyone thinks ChatGPT will kill it. The numbers say otherwise. Revenue is up 245% since GPT-3.5 launched. And Duolingo has much more than that.

Want the full analysis of Adyen, Duolingo, and the rest of the Best Buys Now list?
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FYI: the average Best Buys Now pick performs 25.64% better than the S&P 500 (from May 2022 to May 2025).

The price will be hiked soon, so lock in your spot now.

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Have you checked the calendar today?

That's right! It's the 15th of July.

Every month on or around the 15th, you get the Best Buys Now, and this month, that's the same again.

The stocks that are selected are meant for long-term investors and that means they could be down for months. Maybe they drop more and make it to the Best Buys Now list again next month.

As always, I buy the Best Buys Now for my own portfolio, the Forever Portfolio.

Without further ado, here are the five stocks I see as the Best Buys Now, in alphabetical order.

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Yesterday, it was the 15th of June and most of you know what that means: the Best Buys Now.

Yesterday evening, I returned home from Vail (on the 15th), and I'm still very jet-lagged today.

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I had already chosen the names on my flight back, but as there was no internet on the plane (thanks, Lufthansa), I couldn't write about The Best Buys Now earlier. It's also the reason there was no Overview Of The Week.

But I did put the stocks of the Best Buys Now in a spreadsheet already. This is the result today (a bit before the close)

Pretty good, huh? 3.62% on average, with one stock up more than 9%.

Still, I won't change the picks. The reason is pretty simple: I don't pick the Best Buys Now for a day, a week or a year. I pick them to keep them as long as possible. These are all companies that I think will beat the index over any meaningful long-term period.

And, of course, I'll adjust the prices so that all stocks start at today's closing price, ensuring you have the same price as listed in the roster.

Just one more remark before we start. In my Forever Portfolio, I don't only buy Potential Multibaggers. They represent about 65% of my portfolio on an allocation basis. But I also own multiple Mag7 stocks, Best Anchor Stocks and other stocks I find attractive.

For the Best Buys Now, that's the same. Sometimes, I take 5 Potential Multibaggers, but often, I add other stocks.

That's also the case again now.

The Best Buys Now

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It's the 15th of the month and experienced Multis know what that means: the Best Buys Now.

To be honest, I tinkered and pondered a lot for this one. This is the reason.

The average pick of the last Best Buys Now of a month ago, is up 40%.

If I leave out the cash position, it was even +50%. In a month! I added three stocks 'To consider.' They are up 21% on average as well.

The average of the Best Buys Now of March, a month before that? Also +25%.

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That means two things:

• It will be impossible to match these results now.

• Many of the stocks that were very interesting then are not anymore right now. It's not that their intrinsic value suddenly rose 40% in a month. It is multiple expansion.

So... what to do now?

Well, I made a list with stocks that I find attractive right now. It just took a bit more work.

And it's not just a random list. I will buy these with my own money after the market has opened. I always put my money where my mouth is.

So, let's go over the positions one by one.

1. Mercado Libre

Before you click this article away because I select a stock that's up 51% year-to-date, look at Mercado Libre's (MELI) valuation.

A forward P/FCF of just above 17 times and a current P/OCF of just below 17 times does that look expensive to you? For a company that grew its revenue by 37% again?

And look at the forward PEG ratio.

The 2025 PEG is still 1.61, which is seen as 'fair.' For a company that has delivered for decades, fair is where it's obligatory for every serious stock investor to quote Warren Buffett.

I think Mercado Libre is a wonderful company. For this year, you pay a fair price, but for the next years, I think you also pay a wonderful price.

The 2026 PEG stands at 1.11. Fair, but bordering cheap, especially if Mercado Libre beats the estimates, as it almost always does.

The 2027 PEG is below 1, at 0.89, and the 2028 PEG, of course the most uncertain one, stands at just 0.74.

If you are a long-term investor, as I am, I don't think you should be scared to buy Mercado Libre at this point. Could it drop? Sure. Could it keep going up so you miss the drop you expect? Of course.

That's why I will add to my position again, even though this is already my biggest position. The stock has been good for me for years and I see no reason why that would change in the future.

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Have you checked the calendar?

It's the 15th of April and on or around the 15th, you get the Best Buys Now. Each month, I select 5 stocks that I think have the most long-term upside. Always remember that phrasing: 'long-term upside.'

Especially in this context, it's very important to repeat that. The best long-term investments may underperform for months. Be prepared for that. That's also one of the reasons I dollar-cost average. It's not because a stock is attractive it can't keep dropping.

With that in mind, let's go to the 5 Best Buys Now.

1. The Trade Desk ($49.24)

For most Multis, it won’t be a big surprise that The Trade Desk (TTD) is in the Best Buys Now. The stock is now down 65% from its high.

(Get the promo price for Finchat through this link)

I feel pretty confident that the stock will look attractive in a few years. But of course, it could go down further. The great thing is that you don't have to catch the bottom to have a great investment.

I got feedback from several Multis that they liked my reverse DCF. I just want to point out that you have to be careful because the assumptions are very personal and subjective, even if all the numbers and the model make it look objective. But with that in mind, let's look at the reverse DCF.

As you can see, even if we ask for a 15% return per year for the next 10 years, with 23% FCF in the first 5 years and 15% in the second five years, the stock is undervalued by almost 30%.

Even under much more conservative assumptions of 18% FCF growth in the first 5 years, 12% in the next five and the same 15% return per year, the stock is still undervalued right now.

Mind you, another conservative element was dilution. I took 2% per year because that is the historical number. At 1.5% dilution, with all of the assumptions just above, the stock is undervalued by 11.5%.

What growth is implied in the current price? About 15.5% for the first five years, and 11% for the next five.

All in all, you can keep playing with these numbers as much as you want, they won't matter that much if the company drops the ball fundamentally.

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That means that the company can fix the "series of small execution missteps" Jeff Green mentioned on the earnings call. Remember that Green also said that the company prioritized long-term gains over short-term gains in a few instances.

Of course, all the bear cases come out when a stock is down 65%. Let's name a few:

• Amazon is killing it in the ad market and is eating The Trade Desk's lunch.

• AppLovin is disrupting The Trade Desk

• Customers don't like Kokai, The Trade Desk's new platform.

• AI is disrupting The Trade Desk.

But none of these really matter, or they are false.

Of course, Amazon is doing great with ads, but that has been the case for years and The Trade Desk still grew a lot. Even in this quarter, revenue was up 22%.

Applovin is not a direct competitor to The Trade Desk. Yes, AppLovin has said they will also create a CTV platform, but I don't know why that would be so bearish. AppLovin has already had three short reports about it in recent months, from reputable short sellers like Muddy Waters. I have looked at the company and to be honest, even if I have followed ad tech for so long, I have the feeling I don't understand everything from AppLovin's business. It feels like I'm missing something and I have learned to listen to that feeling. But besides that, AppLovin and The Trade Desk are in different markets.

As for Kokai, I have the feeling there is a loud minority that, indeed, doesn't like Kokai, but the majority of customers has already switched from Solimar (the previous platform that is still active) to Kokai.

Jeff Green on the conference call:

We’ll move 100% of our clients to Kokai this year. Now, the majority already have. But today we are maintaining two systems, Solimar and Kokai. This slows us down. Kokai is more effective in almost every way.

As for AI, the company has been using AI since 2017 and knows it very well. If more customers use LLMs instead of Google search, that's not a problem for The Trade Desk. CTV (Connected TV) is their biggest market and, simultaneously, the fastest-growing.

I have intensely followed founder and CEO Jeff Green for more than 6 years. I have never seen one remark where he was not candid, saw him break one promise he had made and make one prediction he didn't nail.

Yes, the previous quarter, the company missed its own guidance for the very first time. That may have been the first time he missed a prediction, although projections are more the CFO's work.

The Trade Desk has already appointed a COO, the first since 2022, as you could read in the Overview Of The Week #16.

I'm sure this will turn out a good moment to invest. I have seen similar negative sentiment around many high-quality companies whose stocks dropped. Think of the big drop in Adyen, when the stock dropped 40% on a single day. I made it my biggest position at the time. If The Trade Desk keeps trading around these prices, it might end up being my biggest position too at one point.

Nu Holdings ($10.84)

Another one that has been in the Best Buys Now multiple times before. There are no really new developments, so I'll won't spend too many words on this one.

Maybe this great Finchat chart shows what I mean best.

As you can see, the stock and net income went up in synch, until November 2024. In the last 6 months, there is a disconnection and that's why I want to take advantage by loading up on Nu Holdings shares.

An excellent management, a company that knows what it does, that grows fast and profitable. Hey, if it's good enough for a (small) position in Warren Buffett's portfolio, it's good enough for a (bigger) position in mine. Well, bigger... In percentage terms of my total portfolio, haha.

If you want to know the three other picks and three more stocks to consider, you can grab the 18% discount here.

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As every month on or around the 15th, the Best Buys Now.

As you probably know (but I'll repeat it anyway), these stocks are not meant to be short-term gainers. To the contrary. Often, I expect to underperform them for a few months or years. But if they work out, they will bring you high returns for years to come.

New From Now On

From this moment on, I will also add a few extra stocks. That can be stocks that I also see as attractive, but there will also be stocks that I think are too expensive. I know some Multis have a closed portfolio, meaning no money comes in anymore or that money is insignificant compared to the portfolio. So, it can be handy to take some profits from some positions to add to other positions.

Just to be clear, I will not change my own approach and I will not do this. I don't sell based only on valuation. But I know some of you want this and of course, I see which stocks are extremely expensive.

On the other hand, the stocks that I will also mark as interesting will not automatically end up in my portfolio. Sometimes, I see certain stocks as very interesting, but not really for the long term. Maybe they are for shorter-term investors. For me, short term means the next year or two years. I'll give a clear example this month of a stock I see as very attractive, with a lot of upside, but not necessarily a stock I want to own for the long term.

So, without further ado, let's go over the Best Buys Now for March 2025.

1. The Trade Desk

Is anyone really surprised that The Trade Desk is in the Best Buys Now? In that case, you probably didn't pay attention to the articles I've published.

In my latest valuation update, the company got a much better valuation score. When I gave The Trade Desk a valuation score of 3/10 when the stock traded at $114, a few Multis were shocked. But I really didn't see it as attractive. That already changed a bit after the big drop after the earnings were released, but the valuation score was still not that high. It is now.

That means that right now, I see The Trade Desk as a great stock to start a position in or to add to your position. I will also do that the next time I add to the Forever Portfolio. And, of course, as always, you'll see how much I add to my position then.

2. Nu Holdings

The stock price for Nu Holding (NU) is exactly flat year-over-year right now, at the moment of writing ($11.79).

In the meantime, revenue went up by 24.3%, but that was with a very strong currency headwind. On a currency-neutral ground, often called FXN, revenue was up 50% per year.

Even with that strong currency headwind, EPS were up 57%.

Great management, a large TAM, continued high growth, optionality... I could go on for another few thousand words about Nu Holdings, but I won't. I'll just point at that the headwind could become a tailwind. I'm talking about the plummeting Brazilian real.

But look at this graph, where

• 1 is Q4 2024, the quarter that was reported recently

• 2 is Q1 2025, the current quarter.

Do you really think the FX headwinds will be as strong as in the previous quarter? I don't. And that's why I see Nu as a Best Buys Now.

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The Best Buys Now and the Portfolio additions are not new, but the combination of both is.

From now on, I will combine them.

Now, just to be certain, I will not always buy most of the Best Buys Now, because I already may have a big position in the Forever Portfolio.

But this time, the first time, that is the case. I see the five positions I added the most to as the Best Buys Now.

Last month's Best Buys Now are killing it so far, up 43.54% on average. Boom!

Please, don't expect the same performance of the stocks I add to the Best Buys Now. And, also, it's the long term that matters, not the short term.

Let's go over the Best Buys Now and the additions to my real portfolio one by one. I emphasize real because there are so many fraudsters and fakers out there. I’ll share screenshots of my brokerage account, so you see that the Google sheet I always share as the Forever Portfolio is real and not just some sort of theoretical portfolio.

Best Buys Now

The Best Buys Now are not always Potential Multibaggers. I often see other stocks that are attractive, even if I don't see them go up 5x or 10x over the next decade. The division is 3 Potential Multibaggers and two other stocks this time.

The Best Buys Now are never in a particular order, but the money adds color from now on, although, as I said before, portfolio allocation is also something to consider.

With that said, let's go to the Best Buys Now.

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Today, I added to the Forever Portfolio. That’s my real-money portfolio I add to every two weeks and I always share what I buy.

Actually, I should have added last week, as I normally add in the first and third week of each month.

But last week, I was so deep into the TransMedics short report that I actually forgot to buy stocks. I had looked at what I would buy (I regularly tinker with that as a sort of winding-down activity before I go to bed) but forgot to actually buy.

But that's OK. Next week, I'm in Klosters for ValueX Klosters.

That means that in the first week of February, I probably also won't have the time to buy stocks. So, I just switch it and I will buy the first time together with the Best Buys Now for February.

But enough service announcements, let's go to the stocks I added to the Forever Portfolio today.

Let's go over the positions one by one, with some explanation for each position, including a new position.

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It is a new year, a new start and also for you here as a subscriber to this new outlet of Potential Multibaggers.

Obviously, we got extra information about how companies performed in 2024. I think it might be helpful to have some perspective on what I consider to be Starter Stocks.

I have two categories: silver and gold. The golden stocks are the ones that I consider to be fairly valued right now, or 'in the buy zone,' so to call it. The silver stocks are those that I consider very high quality but are a bit (or a lot) too expensive right now.

That doesn't mean you can't buy them, but I would do it very cautiously and not too much at a time.

As you'll see, I also added a column with the PMQS or Potential Multibaggers Quality Score. If you are new to Potential Multibaggers, this is based on 17 criteria on which all stocks are scored. You can see a recent example of this for Nu Holdings in this article.

Ok, enough talk. Let's go to the list.

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On or around the 15th each month, I release the Best Buys Now. This month, it's a day later, so without further ado, let's go!

1. Adobe

It's funny to see an established company like Adobe (ADBE) fluctuate on emotions in the market. Just look at the stock price over the last 5 years.

It's been a wild ride for such a big, established company. And overall, over the last five years, the stock is only up 21%. Ouch. Or: Hurray! Because it means that Adobe is quite attractive at this point, in my opinion.

Whether you look at it from a simple forward PE, free cash flow, or EV/EBITDA, Adobe is at its lowest valuation in a decade, except from a small time window in 2022, when LLMs were supposed to kill Adobe.

Despite the negative sentiment, Adobe is still expected to continue growing at double digits.

Adobe seems to agree that its stock is overvalued and it is ramping up its buyback program. Historically, that has been a sign that the stock was, indeed, undervalued. You can see that in the track record of the company. You can see that on these two Finchat charts.

A great company at what looks like a great price? Sign me up!

Nvidia

Nvidia (NVDA) is a freak stock. It's up 272x over the last decade. Wow! Over the last year, it's up 145%, but I still think it's attractive at this point.

There’s a lot of buzz surrounding artificial intelligence stocks these days, but, contrary to what many claim, I see no sign of a general bubble. While some companies may appear overhyped, such as Palantir, I don't see a broader market bubble. Don't get me wrong, I think Palantir is a fantastic company, but it's simply too expensive right now.

Nvidia is a prime example of why people call a bubble but there is not actually one. Analysts are projecting earnings per share growth of 50.49% by 2025, but the stock is trading at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of just 30.66. This gives it a 2025 PEG ratio of only 0.60. For a high-growth stock, this is a bargain.

Despite its huge gains over the past years, Nvidia remains attractively priced at this point. For long-term investors, which we are, it remains an attractive stock.

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The new year is about to start. It's 2025 already. I liked this meme about it.

Source

I already want to wish you a great 2025, a year to remember. Above all, I wish you and your loved ones good health, great experiences, and good relations. Cheers!

But, of course, you are here for the stocks, right?

Because we also count down on New Year's Eve, I wanted to start with number 10, not number 1. To be clear, they are in reverse alphabetical order, not in order of conviction.

10. Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM)

If you look at the high-end chips, the ones that power the ongoing AI revolution, they are almost all made by TMSC. It's the only chip maker that can make them. Samsung might be licensed by Nvidia next year, but that's still uncertain and even if they would be, TSMC is way ahead, especially with ASML's High NA EUV machines in their factories. Now, don't get me wrong, these machines are no plug-and-play, and it will take a year before they are fully functional, but Samsung will be later, no matter what.

Also, I think TSMC is still quite fairly priced despite the 97% gains over the last year.

Source: Seeking Alpha

I know, you will hear bears say that we are at the top of the chip cycle, but this is my reaction to that.

If you listen to producers like Nvidia, TSMC, ASML, customers like Tesla, X, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon and observers like Cloudflare and The Trade Desk, you come to one conclusion: we haven't seen anything yet. And TSM will manufacture the chips that power this revolution we all see under our very eyes.

Masayoshi Son, Softbank's visionary founder and CEO, said in October that $9 trillion in capex would be needed for the AI revolution. He thinks that by 2035, artificial "superintelligence" could be there and calculates it will be 10,000 times more powerful than the human brain. However, there has to be an investment to buy more than 200 million GPU processors to achieve this. He says that if this would even add just 5% to GDP, that $9 trillion in spending would be earned back in just 2 years. Here's the clip. It's just 3 minutes and it's worth watching.

If this is even remotely true and with TSM's near-monopoly in manufacturing these high-end chips, there's a ton of upside left.

Of course, there's the geopolitical risk that China might invade Taiwan, but the US won't let that happen. In the meantime, TSM is building out its infrastructure in the US as fast as it can to diversify this risk.

9. TransMedics (TMDX)

The company recently narrowed its revenue guidance from $425 million to $445 million previously to $428 million to $432 million. The consensus stood at $432.7 million.

That's still 77% to 79% revenue growth compared to 2023 and up 35% in Q4 at the midpoint of the new guidance. However, it would also mean that revenue would be more or less in line with the previous quarter, so there would be no or barely any quarter-over-quarter growth. The reasons were the same as before: a slower organ transplant market in general and TransMedic's airplanes still in repair.

We all know that most analysts are focused on the short term. Given Q4's lackluster guidance, the short-term bull case seems difficult, especially since the impact could continue in the first half of 2025. However, the second half of next year should be strong.

The second reason the stock dropped was that the CFO was suddenly replaced, which is always a bad surprise to financial markets. And admitted that this was somewhat strange and sudden.

Some thought Stephen Gordon was paying the price for not meeting the company's financial goals. But the departure is not hostile. Gordon will stay on board as a non-executive until the end of March 2025 to guarantee a smooth transition. Additionally, he will remain a consultant for TransMedics for another 12 months after that.

In the Seeking Alpha comment section of this news, I found this an interesting thought.

This could make sense and explain the very amicable transition. It will be either this or another, bigger, company that lured him away, I think. And this is certainly an investor who does a lot of research, because he also dug up this video of CEO Waleed Hassanein in Italy, where he announced that TransMedics will open a center there. The center will serve as an R&D center and production facility.

The video was from several weeks ago, but as far as I know, this was not covered anywhere, except maybe in the Italian media. You can go to the settings and set the language of the captions ('CC') to English, so you can understand what Waleed says.

The company immediately announced a new CFO, Gerardo Hernandez. He has 25 years of experience. He is the former head of FP&A (financial planning and analysis) at Shire, which Takeda bought for a whopping $62 billion.

(Source)

On X, this was shared:

DCD stands for declared circulatory death (irreversible heart failure), and DBD stands for declared brain death. The second one is controversial, and there are ethical and cultural concerns about defining death with DBD. While brain death means the irreversible cessation of all brain activity, the body can still exhibit signs of life, like a beating heart, through artificial support. This raises philosophical, religious, and diagnostic questions, especially in the context of organ donation. That's why TransMedics does much less DBD.

Some X accounts follow TransMedics in every detail. They even report about flights (347 up to December 15).

All in all, the consensus seems to be that TransMedics will end up at the upper range of their guidance or even beat that.

And again, this is a stock that looks cheap on a PEG basis.

You look at a 2025 PEG of 0.93 and a 2026 PEG of 0.46. This looks like an opportunity to me.

8. Nvidia (NVDA)

What? Nvidia, the largest company in the world already? According to some value investors, the AI hype king after the stock is up 670% in the last 2 years?

Source: Finchat, the best AI-powered stock platform, for research, charts, transcripts, estimates, a huge number of KPIs for companies, stock screening and much, much, much more. Grab your 15% discount here!

Isn't this the new Cisco? Or the new Intel? Do you want to invest in a $3.3T company? Kris, are you really out of your mind???

Well, maybe I am out of my mind. I'm probably not the best judge, haha. But I still think there's a strong investment case for Nvidia over the next decade.

We are still very early in the AI cycle. This is like the internet in 1998 or so. Some will claim that a 2000-2003-like crash will also come this time, but right now, I don't see the overextended valuations from back then. Yes, there are pockets of bubbles. I wouldn't buy Palantir (PLTR) or IonQ (IONQ) now. While I think they could have a fantastic future, especially Palantir, their valuations have already priced in years of high growth.

However, if the expected growth numbers are in the ballpark, I think Nvidia is still priced fairly or even cheaply.

As you can see, the stock trades at 31 times 2025 EPS (even though it's a month later), with expected EPS growth of 50%. That puts Nvidia at a 2025 PEG of 0.62, which is very low for such a premium company. Granted, growth is expected to slow down in 2026, with "just" 26%, but even that, if true, still looks on the cheap side with the 2026 PEG of 0.94. And that's without Nvidia's huge earnings beats.

I think the risk-reward for Nvidia is still solid at this point.

7. Nu Holdings (NU)

Again, I was very impressed with Nu Holdings' results. OK, optically, revenue growth slowed down considerably. In the filings, you'll see 38%, which is, of course, nothing to sneeze at. But if you strip out the currency fluctuations from the Brazilian real to US dollars, you see that revenue growth was actually 56%. This is often indicated as FXN (foreign currency neutral).

You can read Karan's take in this article.

Let's look at the forward PEG here as well.

Do you see that? A PEG of 0.46 for 2025 and 0.35 for 2026. That's just plain cheap. And for such a great company, that's often all you need to know, so let's not make this longer than necessary.

Of course, I know about the Brazilian crisis, but you get a margin of safety for Nu. More about NU also in the part of the next pick.

6. Mercado Libre (MELI)

Some pointed to the weak real (the Brazilian currency), and they are right. It's down 20% year-to-date compared to the dollar (see the first chart). In the meantime, Nu's revenue is up almost 40%, that of Mercado Libre 28%, and FCF even more, although you can't really use that because of their loan business.

But all in all, I think that the results show that Mercado Libre and Nu do pretty well despite the dropping real.

But suddenly, commenters start to write this:

It was in the news, so everybody jumped on this. The fall is "endless" now.

And, of course, a weaker Brazilian currency is a headwind. Don’t get me wrong. But it's not as if that's the first time for Mercado Libre. Just look at this.

Until a few years ago, Argentina was Mercado Libre's second-biggest market after Brazil. (Now, Mexico is second, and Argentina is third.) Some think the drop in the Brazilian real (down 5% in the last month) is a new problem, haha. As you can see, the Argentine peso was down 99.16% over the last decade. Over that period, Mercado Libre was up 1,250%.

For Nu, there's no such track record, but I think the company is as strong as Mercado Libre and will navigate this environment as well.

Fede Sandler, the former Investor Relations Officer of both Mercado Libre and Nu posted:

Nu was founded in a recession, then went through an impeachment, then the worse recession in 100 years and then a pandemic. Yet it still grows like gangbusters and execute like a world class company.

BTW because it is the lowest cost producer and generates competition while it digitalizes cash it generates more tax revenue so left and right leaning governments lean on them.

Concerned zero.

Now, there's no denying that the currency headwind is strong for both Mercado Libre and Nu Holdings because they report their earnings in dollars (because they trade in the US).

So, the weaker Brazilian real is a buying opportunity, in my opinion. Of course, on a dollar-base, Mercado Libre and Nu may miss their Q4 consensus, and who knows, maybe the stocks could drop more then. But I will then use it as an extra buying opportunity. World-class companies don't often trade for such low valuations.

As a long-term investor, noise can be great!

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Yesterday was the 15th of the month, and on or around that day, you will always get The Best Buys Now, 5 stocks I want to own and think are a good buy now.

To be clear, these are not stocks that I think will outperform in the next few weeks or months but stocks that I want to have in my portfolio for the long run. That often means that they can underperform in the next few months. I don't care. These are often good opportunities for the long term. It can take a year or longer before there's outperformance. I've seen Best Buys Now selections underperform for two years and then suddenly beat the hell out of the indexes.

And, of course, not every stock will play out, but that's not necessary to do well.

This time, I selected cheap stocks. Yes, you read that right. When so many say that the markets are overvalued, I still see stocks that I consider fairly valued or even cheap.

Of course, growth is always a part of the equation, and that's why I use the forward PEG. It's an adaptation from Peter Lynch. If you divide the forward PE by the expected EPS growth, you get the forward PEG. So, if a company is at a 2025 PE ratio of 20 and it is expected to grow its earnings per share by 20% in 2025, the 2025 PEG is 1.

A score of 1 or lower is cheap, between 1 and 2 is more or less fair, and above 2 is expensive.

I've been using this system for years already. Of course, it does not apply to all stocks. It depends on the phase the company is in.

That's why I developed this valuation overview, based on work by Aswath Damodaran, but with my own twist.

You see that the forward PEG is useful for companies in mature growth. But sometimes, for the best of companies, it can also be applied in high growth. Now that you know this, let's go to the Best Buys Now for December.

1. Nvidia

What? Nvidia (NVDA), the largest company in the world? According to some value investors, this is the peak AI hype king after the stock is up 670% in the last 2 years.

Source: Finchat, the best charting, screening and finance AI platform

Isn't this the new Cisco? Or the new Intel? Do you want to invest in a $3.3T company? Kris, are you really out of your mind???

Well, maybe I am out of my mind. I'm probably not the best judge for that, haha. But I still think there's a good investment case for Nvidia over the next decade.

We are still very early in the AI cycle. This is like the internet in 1998 or so. Some will claim that a 2000-2003-like crash will also come this time, but right now, I don't see the overextended valuations from back then. Yes, there are pockets of bubbles. I wouldn't buy Palantir (PLTR) or IonQ (IONQ) now. While I think they could have a fantastic future, especially Palantir, their valuations have already priced in years of high growth.

However, if the expected growth numbers are in the ballpark, I think Nvidia is still priced fairly or even cheaply.

As you can see, the stock trades at 30 times 2025 EPS (even though it's a month later), with expected EPS growth of 50%. That puts Nvidia at a 2025 PEG of 0.6, which is very low. Granted, growth is expected to slow down in 2026, with "just" 26%, but even that, if true, still looks on the cheap side with the 2026 PEG of 0.93. And that's without Nvidia's huge earnings beats.

OF course, as for every stock, there are risks:

• A new player may come out of the woods and disrupt Nvidia (unlikely).

• The hyperscalers may continue to produce more of their own chips

• AMD might take some market share.

But all in all, I think the risk-reward for Nvidia is still solid at this point.

2. Mercado Libre

The company invested more than Wall Street was expecting in Q3, making Mercado Libre (MELI) miss on EPS. More in the earnings analysis.

If we look at the next few years, this is what we see. From 2027, there's only one analyst covering, which is always hard to trust.

That's EPS growth, while Mercado Libre is actually not in the profit-optimizing phase yet. But with a 2025 PEG ratio of 1.13, it already looks fairly valued there. The 2026 PEG even stands at 0.82.

On top of that, this is also important.

(Source: Morningstar)

Morningstar does not easily give the wide economic moat label. This means that Morningstar sees the company's competitive advantage lasting for at least 20 years. Now, factor that in for growth. Additionally, the company has exemplary capital allocation. A great company trading at a fair price? Count me in! If the sentiment is not great, that gives me more time to accumulate shares.

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