2 Top Bargain Stocks Ready for a Bull Run

Most investors scan the same handful of headlines in search of value. But some of the most compelling setups in the stock market today come from consumer-facing companies that have simply been forgotten. These are businesses with real customers, real revenue, and real background or reasons to believe the narrative is about to change.

Two such companies stand out right now, and they are primed for a bull run.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. PayPal: Boring ticker, but primed for a comeback

PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) has become something of a stock everyone has given up on. The share price is down more than 80% from its peak, now trading around $50. That's the kind of multiple you'd expect from a declining business, not from the digital payments infrastructure that continually processes transactions for hundreds of millions of consumers.

The company's challenges are real and worth acknowledging. In Q4 2025, PayPal missed revenue expectations with $8.68 billion versus estimates of $8.80 billion, and branded checkout volume growth slowed to just 1% -- down sharply from 7% a year earlier. CEO Alex Chriss departed following those results, adding leadership uncertainty to an already complicated story.

But underneath those headline numbers, there are genuine catalysts that the market appears to be discounting entirely. First, Venmo, which many investors have written off as a social app, generated $1.7 billion in revenue in fiscal 2025, a 20% full-year increase, with Venmo debit card transaction volume up 50%. Buy now, pay later (BNPL) volume hit $40 billion, up 20%.

On top of this, PayPal's Fastlane product (a guest checkout tool that allows consumers to complete purchases in a single click) is showing real commercial traction, with merchants reporting checkout conversion up 28% compared to non-Fastlane transactions.

The bigger picture here is about open commerce infrastructure. PayPal isn't just a checkout button anymore. With its PayPal Open platform launched in early 2025, the company is positioning itself as the connective tissue for digital commerce: payments, identity, BNPL, and loyalty data. Merchants who integrate the full ecosystem get access to over 430 million active accounts.

The company has also earmarked $6 billion for share repurchases in 2026. The setup looks a lot like Meta Platforms in 2022: hated, discarded, and quietly rebuilding. Meta has outperformed since that lull.

2. Wingstop is selling consistently through all the noise

Wingstop (NASDAQ: WING) is a different kind of bargain. At roughly $189 per share, the stock is down about 60% from its late 2024 highs, reflecting the first full-year decline in domestic same-store sales in 22 years.

The same-store sales decline of 3.3% for full-year 2025 occurred amid an extremely difficult consumer environment, one that affected the entire fast-casual sector. What the headline misses is that Wingstop opened 493 net new restaurants in 2025 and grew systemwide sales 12.1% to $5.3 billion. The unit economics remain some of the strongest in the restaurant industry.

What changes the story in 2026 is technology. Wingstop's Smart Kitchen, a machine learning-based platform that predicts demand before orders arrive and tells kitchen staff exactly when to start preparing food, is now rolling out across the entire system. Yes, think artificial intelligence in restaurants.

In restaurants where it has been deployed, wait times have been cut by roughly 50%. Faster throughput means more orders per hour, which means better unit-level economics. The company also launched a loyalty program pilot in 2025 and is leaning heavily into digital, which already accounts for 73.2% of systemwide revenue. I like loyalty programs because they add consistent, recurring value to a company (think subscription customers). With 2026 guidance calling for low-single-digit comp growth and 15% to 16% unit expansion, this is a great stock primed for a bull run.

Micah Zimmerman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Meta Platforms and PayPal. The Motley Fool recommends Wingstop and recommends the following options: short June 2026 $50 calls on PayPal. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.