Stock Market Selloff: 4 No-Brainer Stocks to Buy Right Now

Manali Pradhan, The Motley Fool

Mon, May 5, 2025, 6:00 AM 6 min read

• Broadcom’s custom AI chips and strong networking infrastructure are in high demand from hyperscalers.

• Despite elevated trade war concerns, Shopify’s diversified and resilient business model makes it attractive.

• Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Intuitive Surgical are both sound picks within the healthcare arena.

In 2025, Wall Street has been rattled with increasing concerns about U.S.-China trade wars, escalating geopolitical pressures, rising economic uncertainties, and growing recession fears. The benchmark S&P 500 index is down nearly 4.7% in 2025.

However, this market volatility and sell-off have opened up attractive entry opportunities for retail investors. Companies such as Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), Shopify (NASDAQ: SHOP), Vertex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: VRTX), and Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ: ISRG) can be smart bets now. Here's why.

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Broadcom's stock has seen a dramatic decline of almost 22% from its recent high in December 2024, driven by escalating market fears due to trade wars between the U.S. and China. Yet, the stock remains an alluring buy due to its robust artificial intelligence (AI) strategy and strong financial position.

Unlike many other chip players, which focus on developing general-purpose accelerators that can cater to multiple applications, Broadcom focuses on custom XPUs tailored to the specific needs of its hyperscaler clients. This customization makes the chips optimal for particular workloads, delivering higher performance and energy efficiency for hyperscaler clients.

This strategy seems to be paying off, since management estimates an addressable market of $60 billion to $90 billion from its existing three hyperscaler clients by 2027. This projection does not include the four additional hyperscaler clients already designing custom XPUs. Furthermore, Broadcom's networking solutions are also in high demand, as they are a critical component of large AI clusters.

Broadcom also boasts robust financials, as evidenced by the 25% year-over-year revenue jump and 44% year-over-year operating income surge in the recent quarter (first-quarter fiscal 2025 ended Feb. 2).

Broadcom is trading at 29.4 times forward earnings, far lower than its five-year average of 70.5. Hence, considering its upside potential and reasonable valuation, this may be an opportune time to pick a small stake in this stock.

E-commerce giant Shopify is currently down nearly 25% from its recent high in February 2025. Despite this, with the company posting solid 31% year-over-year top-line growth and operating margin of 17% in the recent quarter and reaching an annual gross merchandise value (GMV) of $300 billion, this share price pullback seems like an excellent entry opportunity for retail investors who are ready to ignore short-term share price volatility.