The Best Stocks to Buy After This Year's Sell-Off

The article is constructive on Uber, MercadoLibre, and Opendoor, arguing all three could be attractive long-term buys if markets sell off. Uber posted 2021-2025 gross bookings growth from $90.4B to $193.5B, with analysts expecting 13% revenue CAGR and 23% EBITDA CAGR through 2028; MercadoLibre's net sales more than quadrupled and analysts see 29% revenue CAGR and 24% EBITDA CAGR; Opendoor's revenue fell from $15.6B in 2022 to $4.4B in 2025 but is expected to rebound 21% annually through 2028. The piece is opinion-driven rather than event-driven, so likely market impact is limited.

Analysis

The market is implicitly treating the three names as one trade on ‘cheap growth,’ but the dispersion matters. UBER is the cleanest quality compounding story because its unit economics can keep improving even if ride volume moderates; the real second-order benefit is that ad monetization and subscriptions reduce cyclical exposure, making the multiple less vulnerable than a pure mobility name. MELI is the higher-beta winner if Latin American FX and credit conditions stay stable; the more important bull case is not just e-commerce penetration, but financial-services take rate expansion as Mercado Pago deepens customer stickiness and cross-sell.

OPEN is the odd one out: it is a macro call masquerading as an operating turnaround. The upside is convex if housing liquidity normalizes, but the path dependency is severe—mortgage rates, inventory turnover, and spread capture have to cooperate simultaneously, so the equity behaves more like a levered call option on housing than a fundamentals compounder. In a risk-off tape, OPEN likely underperforms both because financing conditions matter and because investors will rotate toward businesses with self-funding growth.

The contrarian miss in the article is that a market drawdown would likely compress expensive multiples across the board, but UBER and MELI could re-rate faster than the market because their narratives are de-risking, not just growing. Conversely, OPEN may look statistically cheap but can stay cheap longer than expected; the catalyst is not merely a better housing headline, but visible sequential improvement in liquidity and contribution margin that proves the model works in a normal-rate regime. The broader takeaway is that any pullback should be used to separate ‘high-quality duration’ from ‘macro optionality.’

Key Decisions for Investors

• Buy UBER on a 5-10% market pullback; target a 12-18 month hold with upside from multiple stability plus incremental ad/subscription mix shift. Risk/reward is favorable because earnings durability should outperform a broad de-rating cycle.
• Add MELI on weakness only if FX and Brazil/Mexico macro remain stable; 12-24 month horizon. Best risk/reward comes from its fintech cross-sell leverage, but position sizing should reflect emerging-markets volatility.
• Avoid outright long OPEN until mortgage rates and existing-home turnover inflect for at least 2 consecutive months. If expressing the view, use small-size calls or a call spread rather than equity to cap downside.
• Pair trade: long UBER / short OPEN over the next 3-6 months. This isolates quality compounding versus macro-dependent optionality and should outperform if the market stays choppy.
• If the tape sells off sharply, prefer scaling into UBER and MELI first, and leave OPEN as a tactical trade only. The expected recovery window is months for UBER/MELI, but could be years for OPEN.