The Best Stocks to Invest $50,000 in Right Now

If you're looking to bet big on a couple of stocks, you're going to want to invest in market-leading companies with wide moats, solid growth opportunities, and attractive valuations. Let's look at why Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) are the two stocks I'd split investing $50,000 in right now.

I'll look at the advantages and growth opportunities both stocks have, as well as look at their current valuations.

Alphabet

Overview: Alphabet's main business is its Google search engine, which commands an approximately 90% global market share. It also owns the most-watched video streaming service with YouTube, as well as several other internet properties and apps, including Gmail, Google Workplace, and Google Maps. It is the world's largest digital advertiser and has the third-largest cloud computing business in Google Cloud. It is also the majority owner of the robotaxi company Waymo.

Advantages: Alphabet has the most complete artificial intelligence (AI) stack of any company, having developed both world-class AI chips, with its tensor processing units (TPUs), and its own top-tier AI models, with Gemini. Alphabet developed its TPUs more than a decade ago, and these battle-tested chips run most of its internal workloads. This gives it a huge cost edge with AI model training and inference, and creates a powerful flywheel effect.

In addition, the company has a huge search and AI discovery distribution advantage through its ownership of the market-leading Chrome web browser, smartphone operating system Android, and a revenue-sharing deal with Apple. This essentially makes it the gateway to the internet. Meanwhile, its massive global ad network lets it monetize both search and AI discovery better than anyone else.

Growth Opportunities: With demand for AI infrastructure-as-a-service off the charts due to AI, Google Cloud continues to see rapid growth. The company is spending aggressively to add capacity, while it is also beginning to rent out its chips to large customers. At the same time, it has incorporated Gemini throughout its products, including Google search, which is helping drive queries and revenue growth. Waymo, meanwhile, is expanding rapidly and could be a nice future contributor.

Valuation: Alphabet trades at a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of around 26 based on the analyst 2026 consensus and 22 times 2027 estimates. That's an attractive valuation for one of the companies best positioned for the AI era.

Image source: Getty Images.

Amazon

Overview: While best known as the world's largest e-commerce platform, Amazon's largest business by profitability is actually its cloud computing business, Amazon Web Services (AWS). The company is also one of the world's largest digital advertisers through its sponsored ad business, and it is in the video streaming business with Amazon Prime. In addition, it owns the grocery store Whole Foods.

Advantages: Amazon has the largest logistics network in the U.S. by volume, giving it an edge in delivery costs and speed. The company is also a leader in automation and is the world's largest manufacturer and operator of robots, which reduces costs and drives efficiency.

Within cloud computing, Amazon has unmatched scale. Meanwhile, like Alphabet, it has developed its own custom AI chips, although they do lag behind TPUs. The company has also formed important partnerships and made investments in both Anthropic and OpenAI.

Growth Opportunities: Like Alphabet, Amazon's cloud computing unit is seeing strong growth, and the company is investing aggressively to expand its data center capacity to capture the opportunity in front of it. Its deals with Anthropic and OpenAI help pave the way for continued revenue acceleration. Meanwhile, the company has recently talked about the potential of leaning more into creating its own AI models, given the cost advantage its Trainium could provide.

At the same time, Amazon's e-commerce business is seeing huge operating leverage as a result of the use of AI and robots to drive efficiencies in its business. It is also seeing strong growth in its high-margin sponsored ad business. Not to be overlooked, Amazon Leo, the company's low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation, is another potential long-term growth driver, and it just received FCC permission to launch 4,500 satellites, which would bring its total to 7,700.

Valuation: Amazon trades at a forward P/E ratio of around 27 times based on 2026 analyst estimates and 22 times based on the 2027 consensus. That is a huge bargain when considering that both Walmart and Costco Wholesale trade at current fiscal year multiples above 40 times. That valuation is just too cheap for a company with two nicely growing market-leading businesses.

Geoffrey Seiler has positions in Alphabet and Amazon. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Costco Wholesale, and Walmart and is short shares of Apple. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.