3 Absurdly Cheap Consumer Stocks to Buy With $1,000 While Tech Stocks Sell Off.

The Nasdaq Composite just logged its worst day since June, and the reason is not too complicated. Investors spent two years paying up for anything attached to artificial intelligence (AI), and now they are asking whether the hundreds of billions being poured into data centers will ever earn a return. Chip stocks have fallen for five straight sessions, and the index sits close to 6% below its high. That is not really a crash, but it is the kind of wobble that reminds people why valuation matters.

The sell-off has been narrow, though. Plenty of ordinary consumer businesses never got the AI premium, so they have little to give back. Three stand out because they are doing interesting things right now, and the market is charging single-digit or low-teens earnings multiples for the privilege. A $1,000 stake, split three ways, buys into companies that sell running shoes, hair dye, and tomato seeds. None of that depends on an AI spending cycle.

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1. Academy Sports + Outdoors is moving upmarket

Academy Sports + Outdoors (NASDAQ: ASO) is a Texas-based sporting goods chain with more than 300 stores across 21 states, and it trades at roughly 9 to 10 times earnings, a multiple the market usually reserves for businesses in decline. Academy is not declining. It opened 11 new stores in the third quarter alone and is targeting 20 to 25 openings this fiscal year, with many in states where it has no history.

What interests me more is what Academy is putting on the shelves. In September, it announced that Hoka running shoes, a brand owned by Deckers Outdoor and once found only at specialty running stores, would arrive in 15 locations and online. Earlier this month, the supplement brand Vitality made its brick-and-mortar debut at Academy. Brands like that choose retail partners carefully, and their willingness to sit inside a value-priced chain says something about Academy's customer.

The risk with this stock is that sporting goods are discretionary, online sales -- think Amazon -- can hurt, and a weaker consumer shows up here before the grocery store.

2. Sally Beauty is buying attention instead of stores

Sally Beauty Holdings (NYSE: SBH) sells salon-quality hair color and nail products to people who want the result without the salon bill. It trades at 9 times earnings, which reflects years of flat sales and a store base that is not growing. Management seems to have accepted that and is spending its energy on new customers rather than new real estate.

In September, Sally Beauty signed a multi-year deal to become the official beauty retailer of the Dallas Cowboys and their cheerleaders, its first professional sports partnership. It is also rolling out a men's hair care shop in select stores this fall and launched more than 100 nail products in August. None of this is transformative on its own, but taken together, it shows a retailer chasing people who have never set foot in its stores.

3. Central Garden & Pet just bought a 150-year-old brand

Central Garden & Pet (NASDAQ: CENT) is the owner of Nylabone, Pennington grass seed, Kaytee bird food, and a dozen other brands you have likely bought without noticing the parent company. It trades at more than 14 times earnings, the richest of the three but still well below the broader market.

On Oct. 19, Central announced it had acquired Burpee, the seed company founded in 1876 that most home gardeners picture when they think of a seed packet. Burpee keeps its own leadership and Pennsylvania headquarters. The pattern is why I like this stock. Central buys durable, unglamorous brands and runs them for cash. Gardening and pet care are categories people return to every spring and pretty much every month, regardless of the headlines.

Micah Zimmerman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon and Deckers Outdoor. The Motley Fool recommends Academy Sports And Outdoors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.