Been watching the market closely lately, and there's a solid case for putting fresh capital to work right now. The S&P 500 has been on a serious run—up nearly 95% since late 2022—and major analysts are still bullish on where things are headed in 2026. If you've got around $1,000 sitting on the sidelines after handling your expenses and debt, it might be worth considering where to deploy it. Let me break down three names that could be good stocks to buy right now, depending on your risk tolerance.

First up is the quantum computing angle. Look, quantum tech is still early stage, but the potential is genuinely massive. Research firms are projecting this market could explode from roughly $4 billion today to somewhere north of $70 billion within a decade. That's the kind of growth trajectory that can make early movers really interesting. IonQ has been turning heads in this space—they design and manufacture quantum systems and offer services through major cloud providers. The company's revenue trajectory is wild: they more than doubled their top line in the first nine months of 2025, with Q3 alone showing 222% year-over-year growth. What's impressive is their focus on accuracy. They hit a world record 99.99% fidelity on their quantum gates last year, which basically means their systems are running almost error-free. That's the kind of technical achievement that matters when you're trying to push a technology toward real-world adoption. Their cost per system is also 30 times cheaper than competitors, which is a huge competitive edge. Yeah, the stock trades at a steep valuation multiple and it's definitely volatile, but if you're looking for a good stock to buy right now with some conviction on disruptive tech, even a modest position here could pay off handsomely over the next several years.

Now, the AI infrastructure play is where things get really interesting. Spending in this sector is expected to jump 41% in 2026 alone, hitting $1.4 trillion. That's not a niche trend—that's a structural shift in capital allocation. Celestica is positioned nicely here. They design and manufacture networking components that go into AI accelerators made by the big chip companies, plus they build rack-scale solutions for hyperscalers deploying AI data centers. Their revenue jumped an estimated 27% in 2025 to over $12 billion, and the forward outlook suggests acceleration. Trading at just 3.2 times sales, it's hard to argue against this being a good stock to buy right now from a valuation perspective, especially with their growth profile.

But honestly, if I had to pick one AI infrastructure play that feels most compelling, it's Micron Technology. Memory chip shortages are real, and they're not going away anytime soon. The demand for high-bandwidth memory in AI data centers is insane, and supply can't keep up. Micron's earnings could quadruple this fiscal year on the back of 100% sales growth. The stock trades below 10 times sales with a forward earnings multiple of 11—that's cheap for a company growing this fast. Memory prices have spiked because demand is crushing supply, and even though chipmakers are building new capacity, it takes time. That supply crunch is likely to persist through 2028, which means sustained pricing power. After a 243% run over the past year, you might think it's too late, but the fundamentals are still pointing higher. This is the kind of good stock to buy right now if you want exposure to AI tailwinds without the extreme volatility of earlier-stage plays.

The bigger picture here is that the market backdrop is favorable. We're in a multi-year uptrend, major banks are still constructive, and there are real structural themes driving growth—quantum computing's potential, AI infrastructure buildout, memory chip supply dynamics. If you're trying to figure out what's a good stock to buy right now, these three represent different risk-reward profiles: quantum for the moonshot, Celestica for the infrastructure play with reasonable valuation, and Micron for the value angle with solid fundamentals.

Obviously, do your own research and size positions according to your risk tolerance. But with $1,000 to deploy, spreading it across opportunities that align with these big trends seems like a reasonable approach for 2026 and beyond.