Just been looking at the current market landscape, and honestly, finding good value plays is actually possible if you dig past the noise around AI and tech valuations. The Shiller PE ratio is telling us we're near dot-com bubble levels, which makes a lot of investors nervous. But that's exactly when you can find some solid opportunities.

Let me walk through three best stocks to buy now that caught my attention.

First up is Citigroup. Yeah, I know the stock has been beaten down for years, and there's a reason for that. The bank's been a mess operationally, dealing with regulatory fines and struggling to manage its sprawling global operations. Return on common tangible equity was sitting in the mid-single digits while competitors were doing better. But here's the thing - CEO Jane Fraser came in 2021 and actually started fixing things. She's been consolidating, shutting down unprofitable units, and shedding low-return assets. ROTCE has climbed from 7.4% to 8.9%. The valuation is crazy cheap at 1.06 times tangible book value compared to JPMorgan at 2.99 and Bank of America at 1.88. If the turnaround keeps working, there's real upside here.

Then there's PayPal. This one's been in a holding pattern for years, bouncing between $50 and $100 a share. Most people have written it off as a mature payments company with limited growth. But the new CEO Alex Chriss (came from Intuit) is actually pushing some interesting initiatives. They've launched a BNPL offering, built an advertising platform using their payments data, and just partnered with OpenAI to create AI-powered shopping tools. At 11.3 times forward earnings, it's trading like a bank stock. The market isn't pricing in the potential from these growth experiments, which feels like a gap worth exploiting.

Last one is Progressive. This insurance company has been a machine for decades - delivering 16.9% annual returns over 30 years. The second-largest auto insurer with best-in-class underwriting and a data-driven approach. Sure, the insurance cycle is tough right now. Inflation hit hard, and they just announced a $1 billion refund to Florida policyholders. The stock's down 17% in the past year. But that's the dip. At 11.5 times earnings, it's cheaper than recent years, and the company's pricing power is still intact.

The common thread here? All three are trading at meaningful discounts because the market's distracted by the AI rally. But each has real catalysts and improving fundamentals underneath. Worth considering for a diversified portfolio if you're looking for value in this environment.