2 Top Stocks That Could Double in 2025
There's no question the bull market is alive and well. The S&P 500 jumped more than 50% over the two-year period of 2023-24, the first time it's done that since the dot-com era, and stocks are off to a hot start in 2025 as well. Through Jan. 22, the broad-market index is up 3%, and it just hit another all-time high.
While pretty much any investor should be happy with the kind of returns the S&P 500 has delivered over the last two years, there are opportunities for more growth. Keep reading to see two stocks that look like good candidates to double this year.
Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. See the 10 stocks »
1. Coupang
Coupang (NYSE: CPNG) may not be a household name in the U.S., but it is in South Korea, where it's the leading e-commerce platform.
In fact, Coupang is following a similar playbook to Amazon, going from a direct online seller and then layering on more profitable, complementary businesses like a third-party marketplace, food delivery, and video streaming. It's also launched a similar service to Amazon Prime called Rocket Wow, helping to lock in customers.
Thus far, Coupang has delivered solid growth, but it's yet to earn much credit from the market. That could change soon, though.
First, the company is delivering solid growth on the top and bottom lines. Revenue in the third quarter was up 27%, or 32% on a currency-neutral basis, to $7.9 billion, and gross margin improved by 350 basis points to 28.8% thanks to improvements in both its core e-commerce business and newer offerings.
Management touted increased efficiencies, greater utilization of technology and automation, supply chain improvements, and the scaling of its higher-margin businesses. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) in the quarter rose 44% to $343 million.
Coupang also trades at a reasonable valuation at a price-to-sales ratio of 1.4, and the South Korean market is a good fit for its business, as its high density and fast internet speed make delivery easy and help services like video streaming. If it maintains its strong revenue growth and its margins continue to expand, the stock will be rewarded by investors. It could see a point of inflection in 2025.
2. Upstart
Another candidate for a doubling this year is Upstart Holdings (NASDAQ: UPST), the artificial intelligence (AI)-based lender that soared during the pandemic but is still down sharply. However, Upstart has gained traction since bottoming out, and the stock is up significantly since then, stabilizing even as interest rates have remained elevated and loan demand has been weak.
That could start to change this year. First, the Federal Reserve is still forecasting two rate cuts, and Treasury yields have been elevated since Trump was elected due to investor nervousness about policies that could be inflationary, like tariffs and mass deportation. If inflation continues to come down, interest rates are likely to fall, benefiting Upstart.
Upstart has also made internal improvements that set the company up for a new round of growth, as it's secured funding for its loans, which are typically funded through partners; has strengthened its balance sheet; and has streamlined its cost basis after a series of layoffs.
The lending platform showed some signs of recovery in its third-quarter earnings report, with revenue up 20% to $162 million. Its volume of loans originated rose 30% year over year to 188,149, or $1.6 billion, and conversion improved dramatically, up from 9.5% to 16.3%. The company credited a new model, Model 18, with improving its conversion rate by making its forecasts more accurate, a key step to driving revenue growth.
Upstart also sees continued revenue growth in the fourth quarter, and it could accelerate in 2025 and turn the company profitable, especially if interest rates come down. Upstart is a volatile stock, but it has the components to soar this year as it builds on the improvements in its model and benefits from an improving macro environment.
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*Stock Advisor returns as of January 21, 2025
John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Jeremy Bowman has positions in Amazon and Upstart. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon and Upstart. The Motley Fool recommends Coupang. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Trump's tariffs could pay for his tax cuts — but it likely wouldn't be much of a bargain
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That's the budget math anyway. The real answer is more complicated. Actually using tariffs to finance a big chunk of the federal government would be a painful and perilous undertaking, budget wonks say. 'It's a very dangerous way to try to raise revenue,' said Kent Smetters of the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Wharton Budget Model, who served in President George W. Bush's Treasury Department. Trump has long advocated tariffs as an economic elixir. He says they can protect American industries, bring factories back to the United States, give him leverage to win concessions over foreign governments — and raise a lot of money. He's even suggested that they could replace the federal income tax, which now brings in about half of federal revenue. 'It's possible we'll do a complete tax cut,'' he told reporters in April. 'I think the tariffs will be enough to cut all of the income tax.'' Economists and budget analysts do not share the president's enthusiasm for using tariffs to finance the government or to replace other taxes. 'It's a really bad trade,'' said Erica York, the Tax Foundation's vice president of federal tax policy. 'It's perhaps the dumbest tax reform you could design.'' For one thing, Trump's tariffs are an unstable source of revenue. He bypassed Congress and imposed his biggest import tax hikes through executive orders. That means a future president could simply reverse them. 'Or political whims in Congress could change, and they could decide, 'Hey, we're going revoke this authority because we don't think it's a good thing that the president can just unilaterally impose a $2 trillion tax hike,' '' York said. Or the courts could kill his tariffs before Congress or future presidents do. A federal court in New York has already struck down the centerpiece of his tariff program — the reciprocal and other levies he announced on what he called 'Liberation Day'' April 2 — saying he'd overstepped his authority. An appeals court has allowed the government to keep collecting the levies while the legal challenge winds its way through the court system. Economists also say that tariffs damage the economy. They are a tax on foreign products, paid by importers in the United States and usually passed along to their customers via higher prices. They raise costs for U.S. manufacturers that rely on imported raw materials, components and equipment, making them less competitive than foreign rivals that don't have to pay Trump's tariffs. Tariffs also invite retaliatory taxes on U.S. exports by foreign countries. Indeed, the European Union this week threatened 'countermeasures'' against Trump's unexpected move to raise his tariff on foreign steel and aluminum to 50%. 'You're not just getting the effect of a tax on the U.S. economy,' York said. 'You're also getting the effect of foreign taxes on U.S. exports.'' She said the tariffs will basically wipe out all economic benefits from the One Big Beautiful Bill's tax cuts. Smetters at the Penn Wharton Budget Model said that tariffs also isolate the United States and discourage foreigners from investing in its economy. Foreigners see U.S. Treasurys as a super-safe investment and now own about 30% of the federal government's debt. If they cut back, the federal government would have to pay higher interest rates on Treasury debt to attract a smaller number of potential investors domestically. Monday Mornings The latest local business news and a lookahead to the coming week. Higher borrowing costs and reduced investment would wallop the economy, making tariffs the most economically destructive tax available, Smetters said — more than twice as costly in reduced economic growth and wages as what he sees as the next-most damaging: the tax on corporate earnings. Tariffs also hit the poor hardest. They end up being a tax on consumers, and the poor spend more of their income than wealthier people do. Even without the tariffs, the One Big Beautiful Bill slams the poorest because it makes deep cuts to federal food programs and to Medicaid, which provides health care to low-income Americans. After the bill's tax and spending cuts, an analysis by the Penn Wharton Budget Model found, the poorest fifth of American households earning less than $17,000 a year would see their incomes drop by $820 next year. The richest 0.1% earning more than $4.3 million a year would come out ahead by $390,070 in 2026. 'If you layer a regressive tax increase like tariffs on top of that, you make a lot of low- and middle-income households substantially worse off,'' said the Tax Foundation's York. Overall, she said, tariffs are 'a very unreliable source of revenue for the legal reasons, the political reasons as well as the economic reasons. They're a very, very inefficient way to raise revenue. If you raise a dollar of a revenue with tariffs, that's going to cause a lot more economic harm than raising revenue any other way.''
Global News
2 hours ago
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Tiff Macklem is wearing an Edmonton Oilers pin as he reflects on coming very close to beating big odds. It's a significant day for the governor of the Bank of Canada: he's just laid out his reasons to the entire country and a global audience for keeping the central bank's benchmark interest rate steady for a second straight time. That night is also Game 1 of the NHL's Stanley Cup finals; Macklem ends his press conference with a hearty 'Go Oilers!' It's a rematch from last year's heartbreak, when the Oilers came oh-so-close to mounting a seemingly impossible four-game comeback against the Florida Panthers, only to fall short by a single goal in Game 7. Macklem, too, was almost safe to declare victory last year. He had just about secured a coveted 'soft landing' for Canada's economy — a rare feat that sees restrictive monetary policy bring down surging levels of inflation without tipping the economy into a prolonged downturn. Story continues below advertisement 'We got inflation down. 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Story continues below advertisement That was all in pursuit of meeting the central bank's inflation target of two per cent, part of a mandate from the federal government that's up for review next year. Get weekly money news Get expert insights, Q&A on markets, housing, inflation, and personal finance information delivered to you every Saturday. Sign up for weekly money newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy Macklem said the past few years have led the Bank of Canada to scrutinize some of its metrics, like core inflation and how it responds to supply shocks in the economy. But he defends keeping the bank's inflation target, particularly at a time of global upheaval. 'Our flexible inflation targeting framework has just been through the biggest test it's ever had in the 30 years since we announced the inflation target,' he said. 'I'm not going to pretend it's been an easy few years for anybody. 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CTV News
2 hours ago
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What it would take to convert a jet from Qatar into Air Force One to safely fly Trump
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump really wants to fly on an upgraded Air Force One — but making that happen could depend on whether he's willing to cut corners with security. As government lawyers sort out the legal arrangement for accepting a luxury jet from the Qatari royal family, another crucial conversation is unfolding about modifying the plane so it's safe for the American president. Installing capabilities equivalent to the decades-old 747s now used as Air Force One would almost certainly consign the project to a similar fate as Boeing's replacement initiative, which has been plagued by delays and cost overruns. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told lawmakers Thursday that those security modifications would cost less than US$400 million but provided no details. Satisfying Trump's desire to use the new plane before the end of his term could require leaving out some of those precautions, however. A White House official said Trump wants the Qatari jet ready as soon as possible while adhering to security standards. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, did not provide details on equipment issues or the timeline. Trump has survived two assassination attempts, and Iran allegedly also plotted to kill him, so he's well aware of the danger he faces. However, he seems willing to take some chances with security, particularly when it comes to communications. For example, he likes to keep his personal phone handy despite the threat of hacks. He boasted this week that the government got the jet 'for free,' saying, 'We need it as Air Force One until the other ones are done.' Here's a look at what it would take to make the Qatari plane into a presidential transport: What makes a plane worthy of being Air Force One? Air Force One is the call sign for any plane that's carrying the president. The first aircraft to get the designation was a propeller-powered C-54 Skymaster, which ferried Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Yalta Conference in 1945. It featured a conference room with a bulletproof window. Things are a lot more complicated these days. Boeing has spent years stripping down and rebuilding two 747s to replace the versions that have carried presidents for more than three decades. The project is slated to cost more than $5.3 billion and may not be finished before Trump leaves office. A 2021 report made public through the Freedom of Information Act outlines the unclassified requirements for the replacement 747s under construction. At the top of the list — survivability and communications. The government decided more than a decade ago that the new planes had to have four engines so they could remain airborne if one or two fail, said Deborah Lee James, who was Air Force secretary at the time. That creates a challenge because 747s are no longer manufactured, which could make spare parts harder to come by. Air Force One also has to have the highest level of classified communications, anti-jamming capabilities and external protections against foreign surveillance, so the president can securely command military forces and nuclear weapons during a national emergency. It's an extremely sensitive and complex system, including video, voice and data transmissions. James said there are anti-missile measures and shielding against radiation or an electromagnetic pulse that could be caused by a nuclear blast. 'The point is, it remains in flight no matter what,' she said. Will Trump want all the security bells and whistles? If the Qatari plane is retrofitted to presidential standards, it could cost $1.5 billion and take years, according to a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details that aren't publicly available. Testifying before Congress this week, Meink discounted such estimates, arguing that some of the costs associated with retrofitting the Qatari plane would have been spent anyway as the Air Force moves to build the long-delayed new presidential planes, including buying aircraft for training and to have spares available if needed. In response, Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., said that based on the contract costs for the planes that the Air Force is building, it would cost about $1 billion to strip down the Qatar plane, install encrypted communications, harden its defenses and make other required upgrades. James said simply redoing the wiring means 'you'd have to break that whole thing wide open and almost start from scratch.' Trump, as commander in chief, could waive some of these requirements. He could decide to skip shielding systems from an electromagnetic pulse, leaving his communications more vulnerable in case of a disaster but shaving time off the project. After all, Boeing has already scaled back its original plans for the new 747s. Their range was trimmed by 1,200 nautical miles, and the ability to refuel while airborne was scrapped. Paul Eckloff, a former leader of protection details at the Secret Service, expects the president would get the final say. 'The Secret Service's job is to plan for and mitigate risk,' he said. 'It can never eliminate it.' If Trump does waive some requirements, James said that should be kept under wraps because 'you don't want to advertise to your potential adversaries what the vulnerabilities of this new aircraft might be.' It's unlikely that Trump will want to skimp on the plane's appearance. He keeps a model of a new Air Force One in the Oval Office, complete with a darker color scheme that echoes his personal jet instead of the light blue design that's been used for decades. What happens next? Trump toured the Qatari plane in February when it was parked at an airport near Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort. Air Force chief of staff Gen. David Allvin was there, too. The U.S. official said the jet needs maintenance but not more than what would be expected of a four-engine plane of its complexity. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said it would be irresponsible to put the president and national security equipment aboard the Qatari plane 'without knowing that the aircraft is fully capable of withstanding a nuclear attack.' 'It's a waste of taxpayer dollars,' she said. Meanwhile, Boeing's project has been hampered by stress corrosion cracks on the planes and excessive noise in the cabins from the decompression system, among other issues that have delayed delivery, according to a Government Accountability Office report released last year. Boeing referred questions to the U.S. Air Force, which said in a statement that it's working with the aircraft manufacturer to find ways to accelerate the delivery of at least one of the 747s. Even so, the aircraft will have to be tested and flown in real-world conditions to ensure no other issues. James said it remains to be seen how Trump would handle any of those challenges. 'The normal course of business would say there could be delays in certifications,' she said. 'But things seem to get waived these days when the president wants it.' AP writer Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report. Tara Copp And Chris Megerian, The Associated Press
