Market Crash: 2 Stocks I'd Buy Without Hesitation

The article argues that Costco and Amazon remain strong long-term buys on pullbacks, citing Costco’s 10.5% revenue CAGR and 15.1% EPS CAGR from fiscal 2020-2025, plus Amazon’s 11% revenue CAGR and 22% EPS CAGR from 2021-2025. Analysts still expect Costco to grow revenue and EPS at 8% and 11% CAGRs through fiscal 2028, while Amazon is projected at 14% and 21% CAGRs from 2025-2028, supported by AWS, advertising, and AI tailwinds. The piece is fundamentally bullish but is framed as valuation-sensitive and dependent on a market correction.

Analysis

The important signal here is not that COST and AMZN are “quality” names — it’s that both are being framed as defensive growth franchises with internally financed expansion. That matters because in a risk-off tape, capital tends to rotate toward businesses that can keep comping and reinvesting without depending on external demand elasticity; these two can do that better than most large-cap consumer names. The second-order implication is pressure on mid-tier retailers and logistics-adjacent peers that lack either membership lock-in or a high-margin profit engine to subsidize low-price expansion.

For COST, the real catalyst is not traffic; it’s renewal stabilization. If digital-member churn is the issue, the fix is operational, not cyclical, which means the market may be over-discounting a temporary metric wobble into a structural concern. That creates a cleaner entry point on any multiple compression because the business can likely absorb several quarters of softer renewal data while still compounding unit growth and same-store economics.

For AMZN, the underappreciated angle is the flywheel between advertising and retail assortment. Ad dollars improve marketplace economics, which in turn funds price competitiveness and selection breadth, and AWS provides the margin buffer to keep investing through a weaker consumer environment. The risk is that the market has already begun to treat AI/AWS strength as a permanent offset, so any cloud deceleration or capex surprise could hit the stock harder than the headline retail growth suggests.

Contrarian take: the consensus may be underestimating how little downside these names have in an ordinary slowdown versus how much upside is already embedded in their multiples. In other words, the stocks are expensive, but the businesses are even more expensive to replicate. The right setup is not chasing them here; it is waiting for a broad de-rating event where fundamentals stay intact but the market sells them like cyclical retail or consumer internet names.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Buy COST on a market-wide drawdown or if the forward P/E compresses into the low-40s; target a 12-18 month re-rating back toward premium defensive multiples, with downside limited if renewal normalization stalls only temporarily.
• Add AMZN on weakness tied to macro risk-off or any 5-10% post-earnings selloff not driven by AWS share loss; 12-24 month upside comes from ad mix expansion and cloud margin leverage, but near-term volatility is the entry window.
• Pair trade: long AMZN / short a low-quality e-commerce or discretionary retail basket for 3-6 months; thesis is that capital should favor companies with internal subsidy engines over names exposed to pure consumer demand and freight/fulfillment pressure.
• If COST renewal metrics remain soft for another quarter but traffic and basket trends hold, consider selling cash-secured puts instead of outright buying; this monetizes elevated valuation while waiting for a better basis.
• Use a hedge: short an equal-dollar basket of highly levered retail names against COST or AMZN longs to isolate quality duration risk; this reduces exposure to a broad multiple reset while retaining the compounding franchise upside.