This year has been, and will continue to be, a rollercoaster of a year. Markets will continue to be volatile, and economic concerns will persist, but so too will opportunities in some of the top stocks and cryptos. Artificial intelligence has arrived, and its emergence has only begun to create opportunities that will continue to grow in unforeseen ways.
Fears of an impending recession remain ever present, but it’s actually greed that is currently driving markets. That said, I believe investment in AI is only going to continue to grow, regardless of a recession. Likewise, interest in the crypto sector should also increase as more and more people come to the realization that predominant financial systems aren’t as safe as once believed.
Those themes are interwoven throughout each and every one of the stocks and cryptos listed below.
Bitcoin (BTC-USD)
Kicking off our list of stocks and cryptos to buy is none other than Bitcoin (BTC-USD). Indeed, Bitcoin continues to confound every market pundit. When 2022 began, it was all doom and gloom for the largest crypto which carries a market capitalization of more than $500 billion.
This led to a 2022 which saw Bitcoin trade around $16k, after falling precipitously over the year. Headlines including the words ‘crypto’, ‘Bitcoin’, and ‘Ponzi/Pyramid scheme’ were omnipresent. The idea that Bitcoin would fall below $10k after having risen as high as $66k in 2021 was suddenly a legitimate fear.
Then it wasn’t. Luckily, 2023 started off with the stock market moving in a positive direction. This cryptocurrency and others moved in concert with the stock market (though it certainly doesn’t always), and Bitcoin was suddenly in vogue again.
It looked like Bitcoin would travel upward in concert with the stock market. Then regional banks collapsed in early March. However, this bearish catalyst for the stock market turned out to be a great catalyst for crypto. If traditional financial systems can’t be trusted, the markets seemed again to be willing to hedge their bets with the highest-quality cryptos.
I believe that sentiment is bubbling up again, making Bitcoin a very promising bet for the rest of 2023.
Ethereum (ETH-USD)
In general, Ethereum (ETH-USD) moves in lockstep with Bitcoin. It’s the other ‘safe’ choice in the crypto market, through still highly volatile. Its rise and fall during the crypto collapse was just as spectacular as Bitcoin’s.
Like Bitcoin, Ethereum remains very promising this year based on many of the same potential catalysts. Any further shocks to the traditional financial system, banking or otherwise, set up an opportunity to invest in ETH. In fact, Ethereum increased in value by 35% in the month following Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse. Bitcoin jumped by roughly 50%, so it’s arguably a better hedge in that regard.
But overall, Ethereum has a lot of positives ahead in 2023. The cryptocurrency sector will continue to develop, and Ethereum fuels so much of that overall landscape. As volumes increase, so too does the investment outlook for Ethereum. This crypto has plenty of other catalysts as well, with future upgrades set to improve transaction speed and fees. In short, there are many things that could work in Ethereum’s favor this year, making this a top crypto to buy now.
Alphabet (GOOG)
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) is back. The tech titan can thank AI for that. Artificial intelligence is the biggest story of 2023 and is going to be the most important advent of this decade. And until very recently, that sea change favored another tech giant, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT).
The company’s recent I/O developers conference changed the market perception around Alphabet and AI entirely. Google is integrating generative AI into its business including search, Android, and Google Cloud. That means pundits will be talking less about the potential of Bing to gain search market share and Microsoft’s AI moves in general, and more about Alphabet’s Google search engine and its integrations with AI technology. We generally understand what Microsoft is doing. However, it’s time to focus on Google and how it will improve through generative AI.
Expect markets to be very keen to direct capital in Alphabet’s direction over the coming months. Flat revenues don’t matter now. Indeed, I think there’s plenty of hope around GOOG stock, as the company is well-positioned to ride the wave of optimism around AI higher.
Monero (XMR-USD)
Monero’s (XMR-USD) opportunity this year is, once again, the opportunity offered by waning trust in our financial systems.
Monero is a privacy coin that maintains the anonymity of the sender and recipient while also hiding the amount sent. It’s one of few coins that continue to adhere to the original point of cryptocurrency, which was to keep transactions private and decentralized. If bad actors leverage Monero, so be it. At least Monero continues to facilitate what crypto originally aspired to.
That isn’t something as easily said for the vast majority of crypto projects, which have slowly veered into enterprise utility that will ultimately make them both centralized and part of a traditional financial system that has failed in many regards.
Security and anonymity should be paramount in any financial system. The fact that Monero focuses on those two paradigms, while also having spiked above $400 in 2018 and 2021, make now an opportune time to consider this token. I think demand will again spike this year, for the reasons mentioned in this article.
MicroStrategy (MSTR)
MicroStrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) might simply be another ho-hum analytics and strategy consulting firm, were it not for CEO Michael Syalor’s staunch insistence that Bitcoin is a generational investment.
The company reported $121.9 million in sales, up 2,2% year-over-year, leading to a net loss of $20.3 million. There are plenty of analytics and software firms that offer a similar profile. MicroStrategy, though, is heavily invested in Bitcoin. That has garnered the company a lot of interest throughout the pandemic period.
When Bitcoin was peaking in 2021, Saylor looked like a savant. However, when Bitcoin suddenly fell, many in the financial community deemed him a fool.
As it stands currently, MicroStrategy holds $4.17 billion in BTC purchased at an average price of $29,803. That strategy has made MSTR stock very much in demand, as Bitcoin prices continue to move in the right direction. If Bitcoin can eventually peak above its previous high, I think there’s plenty of upside in owning this crypto-related stock right now.
XRP (XRP-USD)
XRP (XRP-USD) is nearly guaranteed to make investors money. It’s pretty much a simple waiting game. The narrative has been repeated again and again – Ripple, XRP’s parent firm, is likely to prevail against the SEC in court, over claims from the regulatory that XRP is a security.
Evidence and questions from the presiding judge continue to suggest that the SEC is all but certain to fail in its assertion. Instead, Ripple is likely to receive a favorable judgment. In turn, XRP is likely to rise rapidly and substantially when that judgment is handed down. At this point, it’s a matter of playing the waiting game.
XRP currently trades for roughly $0.42, but traded for $3.40 back in early 2018. Some pundits anticipate XRP could reasonably jump to those levels again following a favorable judgment. Others think prices will be lower. Whatever the case, it looks like the cross-border transactions crypto is likely to be well-positioned for 2023.
Nvidia (NVDA)
Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) has seen its fortunes ebb and flow like few companies over the past decade. The market didn’t really appear to care about the GPU and chipset manufacturer until relatively recently.
That fact is reflected in Nvidia’s market cap, which was measured at $10 billion in 2015. Fast forward to 2023 and Nvidia is the 7th most valuable company globally, and the 9th most valuable asset overall including silver and gold.
However, it hasn’t been a steady journey to the top for Nvidia. NVDA stock peaked in late-2021 when quantitative easing began to cease. Nvidia would fall from a $750 billion market capitalization to $290 billion over the ensuing year.
It has bounced back. This company is now trading above the $700 billion level, and can thank a few trends for that rebound. One, Nvidia is involved in such a broad swath of technology that investors simply believe it is inseparable from future growth. And two, Nvidia has become synonymous with the rise of AI. Don’t be surprised if that pushes its valuation above $1 trillion at some point soon.
On the date of publication, Alex Sirois did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.