Three Strong Stocks to Buy Right Now: An Investment Strategy for 2026

The market reaching all-time highs doesn’t mean you should sit on the sidelines. In fact, there are compelling investment opportunities scattered across different sectors right now. If you have $10,000 to deploy, there are several strong stocks to buy that can help you capitalize on major trends shaping 2026 and beyond.

The three stocks worth considering today represent three distinct market plays: a dominant artificial intelligence infrastructure leader, an emerging-market e-commerce and fintech powerhouse, and a recovering digital advertising platform. Each offers a different pathway for investors seeking portfolio growth.

Nvidia: Commanding the AI Infrastructure Boom

Nvidia stands at the epicenter of the artificial intelligence revolution. As the world’s largest company by market capitalization, it dominates the GPU market—the specialized processors essential for training and deploying generative AI models. Tech giants and AI hyperscalers depend almost entirely on Nvidia’s technology to power their AI operations.

The company’s growth trajectory remains remarkable. Wall Street analysts project 50% revenue growth for fiscal 2027, driven by continued spending from AI hyperscalers and the rollout of its new Rubin architecture. For a company of Nvidia’s massive scale, maintaining double-digit growth rates would be impressive; 50% growth is extraordinary.

The tailwinds supporting this projection are substantial. Enterprise AI adoption is accelerating, infrastructure spending remains robust, and the competitive moat around Nvidia’s GPU technology continues widening. If you’re seeking exposure to the defining technology trend of this decade, Nvidia remains a compelling stock to buy.

MercadoLibre: Tapping Into Emerging Market Growth

While less well-known than Nvidia in the United States, MercadoLibre has built something equally impressive: Latin America’s dominant e-commerce and financial services platform. Often compared to Amazon, the comparison undersells what MercadoLibre has actually built.

Beyond marketplace logistics—same-day and next-day delivery across much of Latin America—MercadoLibre created an entire digital payments infrastructure. This dual-business model mirrors two of the most successful growth stories in developed markets: e-commerce expansion and fintech adoption. By investing in MercadoLibre, you’re gaining exposure to market trends that have already proven winners, but in an emerging-market context where they’re still in their growth phases.

The stock has experienced a recent pullback, trading nearly 20% below its all-time high. For a company with MercadoLibre’s track record of consistent market outperformance, such price weakness creates a genuine buying opportunity. These markdown moments are rare for high-quality growth companies.

The Trade Desk: Spotting Value in a Temporary Downturn

The Trade Desk operates differently from both Nvidia and MercadoLibre. Its ad technology platform connects advertisers with premium digital inventory across the internet—though notably excluding walled gardens like Facebook and Google. Connected TV represents particularly strong growth terrain for the platform.

The company stumbled in 2025 while rolling out its new AI-powered advertising tools, causing investor concern. Latest quarterly data showed its slowest growth rate in company history (excluding a COVID-affected period), at 18%. However, this slowdown tells an incomplete story. Q3 2024 benefited from heavy political advertising spending that didn’t recur in 2025, creating difficult year-over-year comparisons that masked underlying strength.

The real data point? 95% of customers retained their platform relationships, a consistency the company has maintained for 11 consecutive years. That’s not a company in trouble—it’s a company working through temporary execution challenges while maintaining customer confidence.

From a valuation perspective, The Trade Desk trades at 18 times forward earnings, compared to 22.4 times for the S&P 500. You’re buying a faster-growing company at a discount to the broader market. As the company’s new platform matures and growth normalizes, significant upside appears likely in 2026.

Building Your Investment Portfolio

These three stocks offer distinctly different value propositions. Nvidia provides exposure to the AI infrastructure supercycle. MercadoLibre taps emerging-market e-commerce and fintech expansion. The Trade Desk represents a quality company trading at an attractive valuation during a temporary setback.

Together, they demonstrate that solid stocks to buy are available even when major indices reach record levels. The key is identifying companies with genuine competitive advantages, strong underlying business metrics, and current prices that offer margin of safety. Whether you allocate capital equally across all three or weight your portfolio based on conviction, these represent thoughtful starting points for building portfolio exposure to 2026’s major trends.