If I Could Only Buy 2 Stocks in 2025, These Would Be My Top Picks

Are you looking for stocks you can buy in 2025 and be confident of good returns? Consider buying these two stocks at their dip.

Puja Tayal

Author Bio

Puja Tayal grew up in a small-business family where dinner conversations often centred on working capital and savings. Her early experiences with investing, particularly during the 2008 financial crisis, shaped her approach to understanding markets and evaluating investment opportunities. She began her career at a mutual fund company before moving into investor education and financial writing for asset and wealth management firms. Before joining The Motley Fool, Puja wrote for Market Realist, where she extensively covered the semiconductor industry. Her published work has also appeared in The Indian Express. Puja believes every stock has a story that can help investors understand its potential returns. She combines business analysis with different investing approaches to help investors make informed decisions and align their portfolios with their long-term financial goals. Outside of finance, Puja enjoys long drives, catching up with friends, watching superhero and science-fiction movies, and managing her family portfolio. She also has a keen interest in artificial intelligence and its potential to reshape the world.

Education

Bachelor's degree in Accounting and Finance, University of Mumbai (2007)
CFA Level I

Areas of Expertise

Qualitative company analysis, management strategy, risk assessment, long-term investing, portfolio diversification and rebalancing, dividend reinvestment, cyclical growth opportunities, compounding strategies, growth stocks, and dividend stocks.

Social Media Profiles

Favorite Investment Quote

"Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing." — Warren Buffett

Published January 15, 2025 10:00 am EST

You don’t need to buy 10-20 stocks in a year to diversify your portfolio. Buying two different stocks at an opportunistic time can generate significant returns. It is like buying quality over quantity. This year presents a good opportunity for tech stocks.

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Two stocks I would pick in 2025, and here’s why

After Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election, there was a wave of optimism in the crypto world. Trump favours crypto, and Elon Musk’s involvement in the policy decisions could make America a pro-crypto economy. There is also the expectation of Bitcoin becoming a national reserve asset.

Hive stock

Amid the upcoming optimism, Canada’s Bitcoin mining company Hive Digital Technologies (TSXV:HIVE) has shifted its headquarters to Texas. Hive is spending a significant amount on building mining and high-performance computing (HPC) capacity. The company is opening a new data center in Paraguay, adding to its three data centres in Canada, Sweden, and Iceland.

The company’s fundamentals are not good for the short term as the significant investment in graphics processing units (GPUs) has accelerated its depreciation. Moreover, the operating expense is high as Bitcoin mining becomes expensive. This has led to a few quarters of net loss.

Hive has more than $1.1 billion in long-term loans. But it also has a Bitcoin inventory of $1.65 billion, which keeps its net cash positive. I am bullish on the stock as rising Bitcoin prices could increase Hive’s profit margins. Moreover, Hive’s HPC revenue is growing by leaps and bounds from $253,000 in the quarter ended September 2023 to $1.8 million in the quarter ended September 2024.

Hive’s move to the U.S. will see the company report its future earnings in U.S. dollars. A surge in artificial intelligence (AI) adoption could help Hive stabilize its earnings.

The stock is currently trading below $4.5, 1.44 times the book value per share. Book value is important for a stock like Hive because its value lies in its Bitcoin holdings. If Bitcoin price crosses the $100,000 mark, Hive’s book value will also increase, driving the stock upwards by 50-80%.

AMD

Another tech stock with a good growth opportunity is Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD). The company was late to enter the AI space. However, it is moving strategically in AI, targeting AI stack from PCs and edge devices to the data center. While Nvidia is a frontrunner and remains an unbeatable contender, AMD has ample room to grab AI data centre market share.

However, short-term headwinds of weak demand in embedded and PC chips have pulled AMD stock down 28.7% since October. If you look at AMD’s stock price momentum since its 2016 turnaround, every dip was a buying opportunity as the stock revived and grew significantly. Driving this growth were the product launches that competed with Intel and provided an alternative to Nvidia GPUs.

AMD has made its place in the chip market as a cost-efficient option for your computing needs. Its vast product suite of network computing, PC, and data centre computing, puts it at an advantage to enjoy more growth cycles.

A strategy I would follow is to keep accumulating AMD shares at every cyclical dip and holding them for the next 10 years. As long as the company’s product roadmap and demand for its chips remain strong, it could triple or quadruple your money in five to seven years.

As for 2025, AMD stock could see a short-term downturn if Trump rekindles the 2018 China trade war this year.