2 Bargain Stocks to Buy With $1,000 in November

With the third-quarter earnings season now mostly in the rearview mirror and the new year within sight, now's a great time to begin thinking about changes you might want to make to your holdings. Out with the overvalued and overestimated names, and in with the underestimated bargains.

To this end, here's a closer look at two fantastic bargain-priced tickers that would be at home in nearly any investor's long-term portfolio.

Pfizer

There's no denying drugmaker Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) has been a tough name to stick with for while now. Although shares soared during and because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company's not even come close to matching 2022's top line of just over $100 billion. Management's only expecting revenue of around $63 billion this year, up just a tad from last year's $62.6 billion. That's why the stock's barely budged over the course of the past three years, and still sits about 50% beneath its late-2021 ... that, and the impending expiration of patents on some if its top-selling drugs like Prevnar 13, Ibrance, and Eliquis.

Image source: Getty Images.

This pharmaceutical company is working on its post-pandemic existence, however. Beginning with 2022's acquisition of Arena Pharmaceuticals followed by 2023's purchase of Seagen (paired with smaller acquisitions like Biohaven Pharmaceuticals, Global Blood Therapeutics, and last year's deal for weight-loss drug developer Metsera), Pfizer has replenished its R&D pipeline – with cancer treatments in particular -- even if it hasn't yet bolstered its marketable portfolio in a major way. It's just going to take a couple more years for these acquisitions and the continued development of these companies' drugs to begin measurably paying off.

It is coming though. The company continues to believe it will bring at least eight blockbuster cancer drug breakthroughs to the market by 2030, with the goal of doubling the number of cancer patients it's serving now, and positioning it to become a dominant player in an oncology market that Precedence Research says is worth $280 billion per year.

Only time will tell how well Pfizer will be able to penetrate this market by 2030. Priced at only 10 times next year's expected per-share earnings of $2.94 and with a forward-looking dividend yield of 6%, however, PFE stock reflects more pessimism about the foreseeable future than is merited.

Alphabet

It seems strange to highlight Google parent Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL)(NASDAQ: GOOG) as a bargain stock. Shares of this technology giant are usually priced at a premium, reflecting the company's dominance as a gatekeeper to the internet.

Nevertheless, priced at less than 20 times next year's expected earnings of around $15.00 per share, Alphabet shares are cheaper than they've been in years.

Why? The straightforward superficial reason is the company's third-quarter earnings report. Revenue of $127.6 billion was up nearly 25% year over, but adjusted earnings of only $2.67 per share were well down from the year-ago comparison of $2.87, and well short of the $3.02 analysts were estimating. The company also missed analysts' top-line expectation of $128.2 billion, making Alphabet's negative free cash flow of nearly $9.1 billion all the more alarming.

It's going to get worse before it gets better too. As CFO Anat Ashkenazi cautioned during last month's Q3 earnings conference call, "We continue to expect our capex [capital expenditures] to increase significantly in 2027."

Artificial intelligence is the core culprit, of course. It's costing the company a fortune, and while it wouldn't be accurate to say there's been no meaningful payback on these investments yet, it is fair to say the payoff hasn't yet lived up to the initially implied expectations.

Just don't lose sight of the bigger, longer-term picture. Even if cloud computing (where its AI numbers are reported) is Alphabet's fastest-growing arm right now, search remains the company's breadwinner, and Google remains the world's most-used search engine by a country mile. Its Android operating system is also still the world's most popular mobile device OS, positioning this company as the top proverbial tollbooth to the worldwide web. It can monetize this access in a number of ways. The biggest threat to Google's dominance of the search market right now is the advent of AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT, but even Google's Gemini is gaining ground on that front, with numbers from Statcounter indicating Gemini's share of this nascent industry grew from 11% to 29% last month alone.

Yes, much of Alphabet stock's strong performance in 2025 is attributable to its artificial intelligence business that now seems to be running into the headwind of reality. It's not clear how much more right-pricing of this move needs to be done.

It is clear that even with some time to think about Q3's numbers and the company's outlook, however, that analysts aren't deterred. The vast majority of them still rate GOOGL as a strong buy, with a consensus twelve-month target of $392.08 that's more than 30% above this ticker's present price. That's not a bad way to start a new position in this name.