The Best Stocks to Buy With $1,000 Right Now

If you've got $1,000 waiting to be invested, I can think of few better stocks to buy than Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT). Both of these are massive companies that are well positioned to take advantage of the artificial intelligence (AI) build-out.

Each of them is also trading for an attractive valuation, making them the best stocks to buy with $1,000 right now.

Image source: Getty Images.

Both stocks are trading at historically cheap levels

Nvidia and Microsoft hardly need an introduction. Nvidia is the world's largest company and makes graphics processing units (GPUs) and other products that give Nvidia the best accelerated computing ecosystem available. This popularity has been prevalent throughout the AI buildup, as its products are incredibly popular.

Microsoft's business may seem ho-hum with its Office product suite, but there's so much more to Microsoft than that. Its fastest-growing segment, Azure, is its cloud computing wing, and it's handling huge demand for its computing resources from several AI hyperscalers like OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT. While Azure is Microsoft's most prominent segment, Microsoft is also seeing strength all around its business.

Despite both companies being at their best, neither of them trades where they normally do. Nvidia trades for a mere 22 times forward earnings, about the lowest it has been over the past few years.

NVDA PE Ratio (Forward) data by YCharts.

That's about the same price as the S&P 500, which trades for 21.7 times forward earnings. This valuation basically projects that Nvidia is going to grow for this year, then deliver market-matching growth after that. However, from all of the AI build-out projections, it's clear that this isn't true, as elevated AI spending is expected to persist throughout 2030. This makes Nvidia a no-brainer buy right now.

Microsoft may not be as cheap as Nvidia, but it is attractively priced compared to where it has been in the past. For Microsoft, I'm using the operating price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio, as it isn't as skewed as when you use net income due to fluctuations in investments. From this standpoint, Microsoft stock has seldom been this cheap over the past decade.

MSFT Operating PE Ratio data by YCharts.

It's not often you get the chance to turn back the clock and invest in one of the biggest winners of the past decade, but that's exactly what the market is giving you in Microsoft's stock right now.

I think both Nvidia and Microsoft are some of the best AI stocks to buy right now. Even if you remove the AI tag, they are still genius buys, and investors will make a nice profit on these stocks over the next few years as they realize growth and return to more sane valuation levels.

Keithen Drury has positions in Microsoft and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Microsoft and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.