The Smartest Growth Stocks to Buy With $2,000 Right Now

Is it time to reload your underinvested portfolio? That's not necessarily comfortable to do right now. Stocks are still well up from their late-March lows, teasing an unwinding of their 18% run-up since then. Many investors are understandably on the sidelines, waiting for a pullback.

If you dig deeper though, you'll find several solid growth stocks that aren't so overbought or overvalued that they're difficult to step into at this time. Here's a closer look at three of the best bets among these names.

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1. Shopify

It's been a tough past few months for Shopify (NASDAQ: SHOP) shareholders. The stock's down 40% from its October peak due to a combination of factors ranging from slowing sales growth to rising interest rates to the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) that could take an unpredictable toll on its business. And these concerns are legitimate to be sure.

The resulting fears, however, are arguably overblown.

Take the prospect of AI allowing a competitor to creep onto its turf as an example. It could happen. But AI-powered computer coding is proving more problematic than it's worth, and it still doesn't meet online merchants' biggest need that Shopify does. That's facilitating payments.

To the extent AI can be of benefit to online sellers, Shopify is integrating this tech into its own offerings like its website builder and back-end user interface.

As for growth, if headwinds are blowing, it's not evident yet. The company's first-quarter revenue growth rate of 34% accelerated from Q4's growth pace of 31%. Although sales growth guidance in the "high-twenties" wasn't quite what analysts were hoping to hear for the quarter currently underway, it's still solid growth. It may also be an understated outlook just to ensure Shopify delivers a pleasant surprise in early August.

More than anything, own a stake in this company simply because this is the future of e-commerce. Consumers increasingly want to buy directly from authentic brands with stories they connect with. Sprawling, faceless e-commerce platforms like Amazon can't facilitate this. It takes online presence-building tools like Shopify's to let merchants give consumers the experience they actually want.

2. Nice

Although the company's been around since 1986 and has been using its current name since 1991, there's a decent chance you've never heard of Nice Ltd (NASDAQ: NICE). There's an even better chance that you've used the company's tech without even realizing it.

In simplest terms, Nice allows companies to efficiently and effectively offer customer service. Its current corporate clients include Walt Disney, PayPal, Tripadvisor, and more. Its platform facilitates more than 20 billion interactions per year, some of which are ultimately handled by live agents, while others are 100% automated.

And yes, it's incorporating artificial intelligence into its suite of solutions. Although AI/self-service tech only accounts for 14% of its total cloud revenue right now (and cloud makes up nearly 80% of its total top line), recurring revenue grew 66% year over year during the 2026 Q1, reaching an annualized run rate of $345 million.

And that's an important nuance to understand about this company. While last year's top-line growth of 9% isn't exactly "growthy," the September acquisition of agentic AI software specialist Cognigy is a major upgrade of Nice's offerings and a key reason the AI sliver of its cloud-based customer service solutions is experiencing accelerating growth. Already a leading name in the customer service technology market and regularly recognized as a top provider by Forrester, IDC, and Gartner, Nice is easily leveraging its existing reach to promote Cognigy's capabilities.

The stock's 65% pullback from its early 2024 peak -- when investors first began fearing this company's business could be upended by a then-new AI platform -- doesn't make nearly as much sense now as it did then.

3. Viking Therapeutics

Last but not least, add Viking Therapeutics (NASDAQ: VKTX) to your list of growth stocks to buy if you've got a couple thousand bucks you're looking to put to work for a while and don't mind taking some risk.

At first blush, the GLP-1 weight-loss drug market seems like a duopoly controlled by the pharmaceutical giants Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly. And in some ways, that's exactly how things are.

The more this business matures, however, the clearer its gaps become.

Enter Viking Therapeutics, specifically its VK2735. The injectable version of this weight-loss drug is currently in phase 3 trials, with an oral (pill) version of the same anti-obesity treatment expected to begin its phase 3 testing in the second half of this year.

What does the world need with another weight-loss option that looks and seems an awful lot like the two made by the two biggest names in the business? By being a dual agonist that also activates the GIP receptor, VK2735 is showing more efficacy at a faster rate, as well as better tolerability. It's also more flexible, allowing users to readily fine-tune their maintenance dosing once their target weight is reached.

It's not been all smooth sailing. Shares were nearly halved in August in response to a somewhat disappointing update of the drug's phase 3 results. The stock's made little net forward progress in the meantime.

Analysts aren't discouraged, though. The vast majority of them covering VKNG still consider it a strong buy, with a consensus target of $95.40, which is 200% above the ticker's current price. They're likely counting on a new entrant into this space with a different efficacy and tolerability profile able to partially penetrate an obesity drug market that Morgan Stanley believes could be worth nearly $200 billion by 2035. An orally administered pill version has its obvious marketability advantages as well.

James Brumley has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Eli Lilly, Nice, PayPal, Shopify, Tripadvisor, and Walt Disney. The Motley Fool recommends Gartner, Novo Nordisk, and Viking Therapeutics and recommends the following options: short June 2026 $50 calls on PayPal. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.