Too many stocks have serious flaws. Maybe their market isn’t growing robustly. It could be that the company’s management is weak. Perhaps the products and services are subpar.
But then there are other stocks where any problems pale in comparison to the opportunities. These are the ones you’ll want to scoop up and hold for a long, long time. A few stocks instantly come to mind. Here are three unstoppable growth stocks to buy for 2023 and beyond.
1. Disney
Sure, Disney’s (DIS) stock performance last year made it look very stoppable. However, the House of Mouse is on a roll so far in 2023. I think the momentum will continue.
Bob Iger, who previously served as Disney’s CEO and was called to duty again in November 2022, knows what he’s doing. It’s not surprising whatsoever that investors applauded his latest moves to streamline and reorganize the company. They know that Iger will lead Disney to greater profitability.
Arguably the most encouraging sign is that Disney believes that Disney+ is on track to generate profits in 2024. The streaming service has been a huge success story for the company based on subscriber growth despite a small sequential decline in the fourth quarter of 2022. When it becomes a profit center, Disney should really be in great shape.
The main reason that Disney is unstoppable, though, is the enduring value of its massive storehouse of content. I view the company as the preeminent master of monetization. Disney finds multiple ways to make money off of its creative works. And the more new movies it releases, the bigger the storehouse grows.
2. MercadoLibre
When I think of unstoppable trends, both e-commerce and fintech make the list. MercadoLibre (MELI) is a leader in both arenas.
Some call MercadoLibre the “Amazon of Latin America.” That’s not a bad description. The company’s e-commerce platform is especially widely used in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico — three of the most important markets in Latin America. In the third quarter of 2022, its online marketplace reached a record of nearly 43 million buyers.
Fintech, though, potentially presents an even more lucrative growth opportunity for MercadoLibre. Many people in the areas where the company operates don’t have traditional banking services. Its Mercado Pago digital payments platform offers an attractive solution.
Probably the greatest knock against MercadoLibre is valuation. Its shares trade at nearly 85 times expected earnings. However, it’s important to keep the company’s tremendous growth prospects in mind. I think that five years from now, MercadoLibre’s current market cap of around $60 billion will look like a bargain in retrospect.
3. Vertex Pharmaceuticals
No rival has come close to stopping Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX) in dominating the cystic fibrosis (CF) therapy market. The company claims the only approved drugs that treat the underlying cause of the genetic disease. Its nearest competition remains years away from even having a possibility of winning regulatory approvals.
But Vertex isn’t resting on its laurels. The company is evaluating its most powerful CF therapy yet in late-stage testing. It also teamed up with Moderna to develop a messenger RNA therapy that could treat the 5% of CF patients who can’t be helped by its current products.
Vertex also has its sights set on big markets beyond CF. It seems likely to add the first of these soon. Exa-cel could win regulatory approvals in treating (actually, curing) rare blood disorders sickle cell disease and transfusion-dependent beta-thalassemia later this year.
Reshma Kewalramani, a medical scientist who’s now Vertex’s CEO, spoke in the company’s quarterly update last week about Vertex’s “five-in-five goal.” The reference is to new products targeting five disease areas that the big drugmaker hopes to launch over the next five years. Importantly, she said that each “represents a multibillion-dollar market opportunity.”
Vertex’s chances of succeeding in these five areas appear to be pretty good. This unstoppable CF leader could be unstoppable in several other markets in the not-too-distant future.
— Keith Speights
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Source: The Motley Fool