3 Money-Related Brainless Stocks You Can Buy Right Now for Less Than $500

Do you spend a lot of money? Suffice it to say, I do. It's how you pay for everything. It's also how most of us get paid for our work, but even for people who don't work anymore, the ultimate goal of this endeavor is to make sure that money is reliably available in the future. We even put money in now in the hope that it will turn into more money later.

The world needs money as long as it needs any form of trading and wealth accumulation.

Against this backdrop, let's look at three money-related stocks, each priced at less than $500. Keep in mind that these stocks have above-average risk. If you know you're going to need some or all of that $500 in the near future (or if these are your first stock picks), then you might want to buy something more predictable.

1. SoFi Technologies

You may or may not have heard of it.SoFi Technologies (NASDAQ: SOFI)It's a relatively young company that was founded in 2011 to help consumers better manage their student loan repayments. It's a relatively young company, founded in 2011 to help consumers better manage their student loan repayments. Since then, however, it has grown from strength to strength, now serving 7.5 million different customers. That's not a huge number compared to most other for-profit organizations, but it's a huge number for this particular company. More importantly for investors, SoFi's growth trajectory is incredible.

SoFi Technologies is an online bank with a popular app. From checking accounts to investments, loans, credit cards and more, it offers everything you'd expect from a major bank. Only it doesn't offer these services through a physical bank location.

It turns out that consumers don't care much about in-person service. The American Bankers Association reports that 48% of U.S. consumers prefer mobile apps for banking-related transactions, while online (PC) banking is the second most popular choice at 23%. Only 9% of U.S. adults want to do their banking at a bank's website.

This shift will also continue to work in favor of mobile banking as younger "digital native" consumers age and 鈥竝e raise more digital natives. As a result, SoFi now has 7.5 million customers, an increase of 44% from the end of 2022 and more than double the number two years ago.

SoFi stock's recent lackluster performance suggests that it hasn't impressed investors by marrying its growth in a fast-growing market. However, it's important to put this decadence in perspective. The stock rose so much during and because of the Great Plague that it could do nothing but fall in the meantime. The faltering economy also created problems.

However, the final repercussions of this volatility may soon be a thing of the past.

2. Visa

Unlike SoFi Technologies.Visa (NYSE: V)The company is a household name. The company helps more than 4 billion credit and debit cardholders purchase about $15 trillion worth of goods and services each year from more than 130 million different vendors. These figures make it easily the world's largest payment card intermediary.

But is it worth investing in?

The opposing view is not without justified concerns. Chief among them is the fact that there is only so much a single company can do to make a relatively simple card payment network more competitive. Even more worrying is the fact that the card and digital payments business appears to be saturated.

However, apart from its large scale, Visa's strengths still outweigh its weaknesses.

Take innovation, for example. The company has established a number of independently operated (and inter-operated) innovation centers around the world in an effort to meet the needs of more merchants and consumers. One example of this innovation is Visa's Artificial Intelligence Business Travel Assistant, which helps users optimize travel, create itineraries, suggest entertainment, act as a concierge, and pay for everything.

Meanwhile, while bank cards have replaced a lot of cash, there is still a lot of cash being used to pay for goods and services, and Visa has the potential to replace it. The U.S. Federal Reserve reports that 18% of purchases made within the U.S. in 2022 will be paid for with cash, and another 13% will be made through ACH (bank direct connect) transactions; "other" accounts for another 9% of these purchases. All of these can end up as card purchases. The same dynamic applies overseas, of course.

Notably, Visa in the process of (doing something or happening)Slowly but surely, Visa is leveraging its innovative technology to win this business. Analysts expect Visa's sales to grow by more than $10% this fiscal year and next, and earnings to grow even faster.

3. Latecomers

Last but not least, investors looking for new money-making stocks may want to take a look at theUpstart (NASDAQ resonance code: UPST)The

It is more or less a credit rating agency. Although it can be asEquifaxrespond in singingTransUnionUpstart helps lenders with loan risk assessment, but it does it in a completely different way - instead of coming up with a formulaic credit score based on income, where debt and payment history are concerned, Upstart uses a more holistic AI algorithm based on 1,600 different data points to determine a person's creditworthiness.

The way it works is loved by our corporate clients! Upstart Holdings' credit scoring algorithms result in a default rate that is 53% lower than the commonly used paradigm. In other words, Upstart's credit scoring system increases loan approval rates by 44% without adding any additional risk of default.

Upstart sells access to its credit rating platform, but it is also a lending company in its own right. By the end of last year, Upstart had more than $1.1 billion worth of loans.

It's a brilliant business idea. However, the young company has encountered the same struggles that most startups face. Chief among them is a lack of consistent profitability. While Upstart Holdings' IPO during the COVID-19 pandemic was well-received, the initial glory has certainly faded.

At the same time, the sluggishness of the economy also played a role, as potential lenders were hesitant to start trying out new ideas.

But from a broader perspective, things are still moving in the right direction. While Upstart Holdings is expected to lose money again this year due to lackluster top-line growth, analysts say the projected sales growth of 28% next year should be enough to propel Upstart Holdings out of the red and back into the black. But analysts say the projected sales growth for 28% next year should be enough to push Upstart out of the red and back into the black. However, the stock may be able to get out of its current woes before then, as investors start to see hope.

Should you invest $1,000 in Upstart right now?

Consider this before buying Upstart stock:

Motley Fool Stock AdvisorA team of analysts has just named what they think is the best name for investors to buy right now.10One stock, ......Upstart, was not included. The 10 stocks selected will generate huge returns over the next few years.

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*Stock Advisory Rates as of April 8, 2024

James Brumley does not own any of the stocks mentioned above.The Motley Fool holds recommended Upstart and Visa.The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

3 Money-Related Brainless Stocks You Can Buy Right Now for Less Than $500 was originally published by The Motley Fool.