Although the market rebounded sharply on Wednesday on news that President Trump was pausing tariffs and only levying a flat 10% rate, except for China, the Nasdaq is still in a bear market. Bear markets start when an index drops 20% from its all-time high and technically remain in bear market status until a new all-time high is reached, which then kicks off a bull market.
Regardless of the technical definition of a bear market, there are still plenty of bargains to be scooped up right now, and I think investors should still be buying. Two near the top of my list of best buys are Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and The Trade Desk (NASDAQ: TTD). Investors received a pop on Wednesday, and these are fantastic buys that should be great investments over the next three to five years.
Amazon
While most people view Amazon as a potential casualty of the trade war with China due to the large amount of goods sourced from China on its e-commerce site, I think that's the wrong way to view the stock.
Although e-commerce is the way most people understand and interact with Amazon, it's far from the best reason to own the stock. Amazon has multiple segments, ranging from its online stores to advertising services to its cloud computing division, Amazon Web Services (AWS). It's well documented that retailers don't have huge profit margins, but ancillary segments like advertising services and AWS do. Both of these segments won't be as affected as the commerce division should the price of goods from China rise.
Amazon derives a lot of its profits from these two divisions, which is why I think right now is a great opportunity to buy the stock. Investors are worried about the segment that doesn't matter as much to Amazon's bottom line.
In 2024, AWS made up 58% of Amazon's operating profit despite only making up 17% of sales. While we don't know what operating margin its ad services posted, a 20% operating margin isn't out of the question, especially if you consider what margins an advertising-focused company (like Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META)) puts up. If we use that 20% margin as a baseline, we can estimate that advertising brought in $11.2 billion compared to the $68.6 billion Amazon generated companywide.
Remember, that's a conservative estimate, so the actual figure is likely much higher than that.
Amazon's ad business and AWS will be fine regardless of what happens with the tariffs. With these two generating the lion's share of Amazon's operating profit, I think now is an excellent time to buy the stock.
The Trade Desk
The Trade Desk stock has been pummeled in 2025. It's down over 50% this year, partially from self-inflicted issues and partially from a marketwide sell-off. The Trade Desk is another ad company on the buy side of the ad market. It helps its clients find the most opportune spot to place their ads on the internet and has a strong foothold in an emerging space: connected TV.
This has allowed The Trade Desk to post phenomenal growth rates over its life as a public company, but it had its first slip-up on the public markets. It missed fourth-quarter revenue guidance for the first time in company history and gave a bit of a weak first-quarter outlook. This caused the stock to sell off over 30% in one day. This decline happened before the marketwide sell-off, so the pressure from that general selling drove the stock down even further. Now, it trades at a level it hasn't been at since before 2020.
Although The Trade Desk missed expectations and guidance, it's still expected to grow revenue at an 18% pace in 2025 and 20% in 2026. This makes it an excellent stock to scoop up right now, as it's one of the top bargains in the stock market.
Should you invest $1,000 in Amazon right now?
Before you buy stock in Amazon, consider this:
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Amazon wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.
Consider whenNetflixmade this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation,you’d have $495,226!* Or when Nvidiamade this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation,you’d have $679,900!*
Now, it’s worth notingStock Advisor’s total average return is796% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to155%for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you joinStock Advisor.
John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Keithen Drury has positions in Amazon and The Trade Desk. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Meta Platforms, and The Trade Desk. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
