Top 5 best-performing stocks during COVID-19

The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused chaos in the financial markets, and almost every market suffered from terrible consequences. However, as markets collapsed, smart investors looked for buying opportunities. In this article, we will single out the companies that performed perfectly during the coronavirus pandemic.

Biotechnology companies

The second-largest biotechnology company in the USA, Gilead Sciences (GILD), even after the largest drop in the indices in the history of the American stock market by 12-13% during the trading session on March 16, remained very stable. According to the results of the financial report for the 4th quarter, the company’s profit for the year increased from $3 million ($ 0 per share) to $2.7 billion ($2.12), revenue remained at the previous year level. Dividend growth continued.

Facebook

Facebook is a very unique field, one of the so-called “proxies” to the US technology sector. Every day, more and more workers are told to stay home and do their work remotely. Consumers cancel trips, changing plans. Meeting friends in a crowded bar or restaurant can be a relatively risky event if you are in a quarantined country.

Facebook offers a more convenient way to communicate with your friends and family if they are stuck at home. The company’s monthly audience is 2.9 billion active users on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. About 15% of Americans say their preferred source of news is social media. The monetization of services is mainly due to advertising. The company places it from more than 8 million organizations. The long-term driver of Facebook’s growth will be that the advertising market’s focus will continue to shift from obsolete media, such as television and print, to digital. The company’s latest financial report showed revenue and profit growth better than expected.

Casino industry

Casino stocks have seen a massive surge during the pandemic. People who moved to remote work and remained in quarantine started playing online casino games. Also, the people who were left jobless decided to engage in trying casino games. Some people who were “novices” in the industry first decided to play online casino slots and then turned to other games for making some profits. Choosing slots was not surprising because it is a very easy game and does not require specific knowledge. Also playing casino games was not surprising because, when you have nothing else to do online casino industry is a perfect opportunity for earning some money. And yet, the industry performed well during the crisis.

Municipal sector

Traditionally, the “protective” sector for investors is the municipal one. In the US market, Quanta Services showed the greatest growth after determining the bottom levels of the current correction. The company is a contractor for the design and construction of power transmission networks and power plants, and it serves telecommunications, gas, and oil infrastructure.

The stability of the sector, revenue growth, and operating profit indicators along with the implemented strategic M&A transactions made it a potential target for investors. The synergistic potential from acquisitions of companies in the sector was realized in the growth of free cash flow to $400-600 million. With a current capitalization of about $4.5 billion, this result will be significantly better than that of peer companies. Moreover, the volatility of demand for company services, even if the recession becomes a reality, is extremely low.

Streaming

Amazon shares were down only 9%. Among all the major retailers, including in the field of e-commerce, Amazon had the best prospects. Market share was regularly growing, and high-margin revenue items were increasing. Lower oil prices significantly affected shipping costs. The separate business of the company – Amazon Web Services (AWS) also was in top shape.

AWS also supports many leading consumer applications, such as Netflix (NFLX), Disney (DIS), Disney +, Apple (AAPL). Thus, Amazon received additional profit from the growth of the popularity of streaming services during the quarantine period due to the coronavirus. When people were forced to remind at home, the demand for streaming services improved greatly and stocks alongside it had no problems.

Conclusion

All the companies and stocks listed above are subject to global correction trends in the market, even despite the improvement in balance sheet performance. Although the virus has had a devastating effect on most of the enterprises and stocks, some of them performed great during the pandemic period.