2 Profitable Stocks with Competitive Advantages and 1 to Steer Clear Of
A company with profits isn't always a great investment. Some struggle to maintain growth, face looming threats, or fail to reinvest wisely, limiting their future potential.
Profits are valuable, but they're not everything. At StockStory, we help you identify the companies that have real staying power. That said, here are two profitable companies that generate reliable profits without sacrificing growth and one that may struggle to keep up.
Trailing 12-Month GAAP Operating Margin: 6.6%
Founded in 1908 by William C. Durant, General Motors (NYSE:GM) offers a range of vehicles and automobiles through brands such as Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, and Cadillac.
Why Does GM Give Us Pause?
Weak unit sales over the past two years suggest it might have to lower prices to accelerate growth
Forecasted revenue decline of 5.6% for the upcoming 12 months implies demand will fall off a cliff
High input costs result in an inferior gross margin of 12.5% that must be offset through higher volumes
At $49.07 per share, General Motors trades at 4.4x forward P/E. Read our free research report to see why you should think twice about including GM in your portfolio, it's free.
Trailing 12-Month GAAP Operating Margin: 11.8%
Founded in the 1950s as Microwave Associates, a communications supplier to the US Army Signal Corp, today MACOM Technology Solutions (NASDAQ: MTSI) is a provider of analog chips used in optical, wireless, and satellite networks.
Why Are We Fans of MTSI?
Annual revenue growth of 9.9% over the past two years was outstanding, reflecting market share gains this cycle
Projected revenue growth of 21.6% for the next 12 months is above its two-year trend, pointing to accelerating demand
Earnings growth has massively outpaced its peers over the last five years as its EPS has compounded at 81.7% annually
MACOM's stock price of $123.42 implies a valuation ratio of 32.7x forward P/E. Is now the right time to buy? See for yourself in our in-depth research report, it's free.
Trailing 12-Month GAAP Operating Margin: 22.1%
Building mini-communities at places such as oil drilling sites, Target Hospitality (NASDAQ:TH) is a provider of specialty workforce lodging accommodations and services.
Why Are We Positive On TH?
Healthy operating margin of 32.8% shows it's a well-run company with efficient processes
Strong free cash flow margin of 24.5% enables it to reinvest or return capital consistently
Returns on capital are growing as management capitalizes on its market opportunities
Target Hospitality is trading at $7.49 per share, or 21.9x forward EV-to-EBITDA. Is now the time to initiate a position? Find out in our full research report, it's free.
Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election sent major indices to all-time highs, but stocks have retraced as investors debate the health of the economy and the potential impact of tariffs.
While this leaves much uncertainty around 2025, a few companies are poised for long-term gains regardless of the political or macroeconomic climate, like our Top 9 Market-Beating Stocks. This is a curated list of our High Quality stocks that have generated a market-beating return of 183% over the last five years (as of March 31st 2025).
Stocks that made our list in 2020 include now familiar names such as Nvidia (+1,545% between March 2020 and March 2025) as well as under-the-radar businesses like the once-small-cap company Comfort Systems (+782% five-year return). Find your next big winner with StockStory today for free.
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- Yahoo
Liz Warren Says Crypto Bill Creates a ‘Superhighway' for Trump Corruption
The Senate is set to pass the GENIUS Act early next week, a controversial piece of cryptocurrency legislation that critics say will hand an undue amount of financial power to the tech industry. On its face the bill, which has advanced with bipartisan support, purports to offer a regulatory framework for the expansion of 'stablecoins,' a form of crypto pegged to an existing, recognized asset — in many cases the U.S. dollar. In reality, it could enable corruption, screw over taxpayers, and potentially destabilize the economy. The GENIUS Act would allow banks and private companies to issue stablecoins, essentially their own currencies, with light oversight from regulators. It mandates that issuers of stablecoins hold a reserve of the stable asset backing their cryptocurrency at all times, and that firms abide by certain anti-money laundering laws, as well as U.S. sanctions against foreign entities. It sounds like a step in the right direction, but this piece of legislation is working its way through Congress as sitting President Donald Trump and his family build a cryptocurrency empire that steamrolls anti-corruption laws and ethical norms — one they hope will flourish under the industry-friendly policies and laws created by the administration of the Trump patriarch. One of Trump's priorities has been the normalization of these so-called stablecoins — a type of asset that his family is now hawking. Despite the moniker, stablecoins can be extremely unstable. A 2023 study published by the Bank for International Settlements found that of 60 stablecoins analyzed in their review, all of them had become de-pegged from their underlying asset at least once. The 2022 crypto crash was triggered by the failure of Terraform Lab's Terra/Luna 'algorithmic' stablecoin — the collapse of which saw $45 billion erased in the span of a week. The stablecoin bill comes as the government reorients its approach to crypto. Under the Biden administration, crypto kingpins began to feel the sting of consequences for schemes gone wrong. FTX crypto exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison after carrying out one of the largest financial scams since Enron. Tether, the largest stablecoin in crypto, settled a lawsuit brought against it by New York Attorney General Letitia James in 2021. Changpeng Zhao, the founder of the global crypto exchange Binance, pleaded guilty to money laundering in 2023. Trump pledged a new, friendlier regulatory environment in Washington — and the crypto industry poured many millions into Super PACs to elect allies throughout Congress. Now, the industry has its moment to push through a public smokescreen of barely-there regulation, while continuing to rake in the cash. No one has been more outspoken on the failings of the GENIUS Act than Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who told Rolling Stone ahead of key votes that the bill would 'create a superhighway for Donald Trump's corruption.' The Trump family's cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial — which is currently being operated by his sons and Zach Witkoff, the son of Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff — recently launched its own stablecoin, designated USD1, which is pegged to the U.S. dollar and backed by treasury bonds. The GENIUS Act would allow major tech companies, banks, and other financial institutions to issue their own stablecoins, and many are poised to buy Treasury bonds so they can back the digital currency with real assets, as is required. According to a report issued last week by ARK Invest, the stablecoin market may become one of the largest holders of U.S. debt in the coming years — potentially tying large swaths of U.S. debt to a dubiously regulated and often unstable asset. 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It's corruption, but it's also a market manipulation that ultimately drains away any development. … It undermines all the markets at that point.' Warren compares the development of the GENIUS Act to efforts to regulate derivatives and the feverish rise of money market mutual funds in the early 2000s, both of which were major factors in the 2008 financial crisis: 'The derivatives industry came to the Congress and said, 'Regulate us,' and they wrote a sample. They wrote the regulation, and Congress — not knowing much about that world — passed it.' The consequence was, in Warren's view, that lay people believed the industry to be effectively regulated, when in reality investors essentially tailored legislation to their own priorities. 'The risk kept building in the system until in 2008 it blew up the entire economy and required a $700 billion bailout from taxpayers,' Warren says. 'So think about why an industry comes to Congress and says, 'Regulate us.' They want the imprimatur, they want the gold seal of the United States government. … They don't actually want the government to oversee the activities of the industry.' Warren is not alone in her concerns, and has found an unexpected ally in Republican Sen. John Hawley of Missouri. Last week, Hawley described the GENIUS Act as a 'huge giveaway to Big Tech' that would effectively allow private tech companies to create their own currencies that compete with the dollar. 'The U.S. dollar is the reserve currency,' Warren says. 'The United States does not gain from creating a competing electronic currency. Getting more people to hold stable coins rather than dollars during their investment transactions, does not serve us interests, but it injects risk into the U.S.' 'Anyone who thinks that when a financial crash hits [the value of stablecoins] will translate one to one into dollars is fooling themselves,' she adds. The ripple effects can be catastrophic when a stablecoin collapses. Existing stablecoins are already buying up billions in Treasury bonds, and in the event of a run on a coin, or any type of collapse within stablecoin, the issuer would sell off their own holdings — in this case Treasury bonds — to pay back their customers. Economists warn that such a scenario could destabilize the underlying treasury securities market that serves as the foundation of the U.S. economy. As Warren and Hawley point out, the risks of economic destabilization increase significantly if legislation like the GENIUS Act passes. PayPal has already launched its own cryptocurrency, and Apple, Facebook, X, and Airbnb have all explored releasing their own stablecoins for customers to conduct on-platform transactions in crypto. 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The Trump administration's immigration enforcement operations are not about targeting violent crime or gang members. According to The Wall Street Journal, Miller recently demanded that ICE 'just go out there and arrest illegal aliens,' at places like Home Depot or 7-Eleven. The administration has also reportedly been directing immigration judges to dismiss pending immigration cases so ICE can then arrest the people involved at the courthouse. Trump's reconciliation bill, which passed the GOP-led House and is currently under consideration in the Republican-led Senate, would give $8 billion to ICE to hire at least 10,000 new employees over five years; $600 million to help hire and onboard those people; and $858 million for employee retention and signing bonuses. 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