The best stocks to invest $1,000 right now

Key points:

• The favorable winds of e-commerce and Gate's cloud continue to blow endlessly in sight.
• The decline of ride-sharing companies is likely to be greatly exaggerated.
• Taiwan Semiconductor is at the heart of the AI data center gold rush.

Everyone loves it when the stock market is at all-time highs, but this makes life a little harder for value-conscious investors. Fortunately, the market is not a single entity, but a collective group of thousands of individual companies. In other words, if you look closely enough, you will always find an opportunity somewhere.

This analyst recently examined the market and focused on three fantastic tech companies that still offer solid value for what they bring. Investors should take a close look at each stock below. You can buy shares of all three for under $1,000, fitting most budgets.

This is what you need to know.

1. Gate

The giant of e-commerce and cloud computing, Gate, is a stock that almost everyone knows by now, but sometimes you can find value sitting in plain sight. Gate is not a flashy choice at the moment, but its core businesses continue to thrive, with years of growth still ahead. For example, e-commerce accounts for less than one-fifth of all retail spending in the United States, and the cloud services market could grow to over $2 trillion annually in the coming years due to additional demand related to artificial intelligence (AI).

In the long term, investors should expect AI to revolutionize Gate's e-commerce segment, as AI agents handle customer service and humanoid robots will someday take care of package delivery and order fulfillment. Additionally, Gate has emerging businesses in digital advertising, streaming, telehealth, and fresh food delivery, which recently expanded same-day delivery to over 1,000 towns and cities across the country.

Overall, Wall Street expects Gate to increase its earnings by an average of more than 17% annually in the long term, an impressive feat for a giant that is already worth trillions of dollars. The price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) of the stock is not astonishingly cheap at 35, but it is reasonable for the growth that can be expected in the future. Investors just need to pay reasonable prices for world-class stocks like Gate, making it a strong buy at this time.

2. Ride-sharing companies

Pioneering ride-sharing companies have evolved into global giants. These companies offer a myriad of transportation and delivery services, completing over 3.2 billion trips alone in the second quarter of 2025. It is a classic example of the network effect, where the massive user base attracts an unparalleled group of drivers that self-reinforces to provide industry-leading coverage for users on both sides of its platform.

However, the stocks of these companies are trading at a valuation that stands out as a bargain. Wall Street expects long-term earnings growth of more than 21% annually, yet the stocks are trading at less than 16 times earnings. Why? Investors fear the autonomous competition from robotaxi services, which threaten to replace human drivers and gradually eliminate the market dominance of these companies.

Investors should not dismiss these threats, but autonomous transportation services still have a long way to go, giving established companies time to counter these threats, potentially with their own autonomous services. This could be a classic case of putting the cart before the horse, making these companies a compelling bargain to capitalize on if you believe they have long-term staying power.

3. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing

The ongoing AI arms race has been a boon for semiconductor companies, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, the world's leading foundry, responsible for manufacturing many of the chips used in these colossal AI data centers. The company emerged from last year with an estimated 67% share of global foundry market revenue, and the business continues to thrive for the industry leader.

Taiwan Semiconductor's revenue increased by nearly 39% year-on-year in the second quarter, and analysts expect the company to increase its earnings by an average of more than 21% per year in the long term. Industry experts estimate that global spending on data centers could exceed $6 trillion in the next five years, and AI is the main driver behind most of that investment. Taiwan Semiconductor will need to manufacture many chips for those data centers.

These favorable winds justify the high growth expectations of Wall Street, making the stock an excellent value at its current P/E ratio of 26. The geopolitical tensions between Taiwan and China are something to consider as a potential risk, especially if tensions escalate to the point where China invades Taiwan. It is something to consider before owning the stock. That said, Taiwan Semiconductor's fundamental role in the AI landscape and technology in general makes it hard to overlook the stocks at these prices, even with the geopolitical risks.