The past year has not been kind to the shares of ConocoPhillips (COP -1.08%). The share price has fallen around 22% or so, which is twice the drop of the broader energy sector, using Energy Select SPDR ETF (XLE -1.21%) as an industry proxy. That divergence might lead some investors to wonder what’s wrong with ConocoPhillips right now. The answer is that the stock and business aren’t the same thing.

What does ConocoPhillips do?

ConocoPhillips is what is known as an independent energy producer. Essentially, all it does is drill for oil and natural gas. This means it operates in the upstream of the broader energy sector. Energy prices are highly volatile and often move very quickly because of geopolitical news and supply/demand changes. That can lead to swift swings in the sales and earnings of companies like ConocoPhillips.

That’s the big story today, with energy prices hitting a bit of a weak patch after soaring coming out of the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Simply put, ConocoPhillips’ income statement results are a bit weak right now. The company’s adjusted earnings per share tallied up to $1.42 in the second quarter of 2025 versus $1.98 in the same quarter of 2024. In some ways, it makes sense that investors are downbeat on the stock.

However, it is important to note that this type of earnings volatility is perfectly normal for ConocoPhillips’ business. It is just how the energy industry works. To highlight that, the company’s realized price per barrel of oil equivalent (BOE) in the second quarter of 2025 was 19% lower than it was in the second quarter of 2024. That was almost entirely out of the company’s control (hedging can sometimes soften the impact of commodity price swings).

Data by YCharts.

ConocoPhillips is executing well as a business

To be fair, ConocoPhillips is not a stock that a conservative investor will probably want to buy. A better option in the energy patch would be a pipeline operator like Enterprise Products Partners, which is a toll-taker paid to move oil and natural gas. With revenue and earnings tied to energy prices, only more aggressive types will want to buy ConocoPhillips.

And ConocoPhillips happens to be a fairly well-run business. The best example of that is the company’s dividend history. While the dividend has gone up and down over time, the company has paid a dividend consistently for decades. That speaks to a business that is being operated at a high level despite the fact that its top and bottom lines can be volatile at times.

More specific to today, ConocoPhillips is seeing some notable operating success that is being overshadowed by energy price moves. For example, ConocoPhillips completed its acquisition of Marathon Oil in late 2024, expanding its business. The integration effort has been outdistancing the company’s own expectations. There was a 25% uplift in the new resources added versus projections. A 100% increase in cost synergies over expectations. And the company has been able to ink 25% more asset sales than projected, and more quickly than forecast, as ConocoPhillips looks to use the deal to refocus around its best assets.

Basically, ConocoPhillips is doing a pretty good job right now. In fact, despite the revenue and earnings hit caused by lower energy prices, the company actually increased production 3% year over year in the second quarter of 2025.

ConocoPhillips could be a good way to get direct energy exposure

All in, ConocoPhillips as a business is doing just fine. When oil prices recover, as they always have before, it will likely be in a better position to benefit than it was a year ago. The stock, however, is a different story, since investors are focusing on revenue and earnings, which are inherently volatile and relatively weak at the moment. That’s what’s wrong with the stock, even though there’s really nothing wrong with the business. If you are looking for energy exposure, however, ConocoPhillips’ business could make it an interesting stock to dig into.

On July 31, shares of internet design company Figma (FIG -1.24%) began trading at $85 and finished their first day at over $115. The following day, Figma stock closed at $122 per share, but it’s been all downhill since then.

The stock dropped 39.2% in August even though the S&P 500 was up 1.9% for the month. And things haven’t improved in September. Whereas the S&P 500 is enjoying an unusually strong month with a 3.6% gain as of Sept. 22, Figma stock has plunged another 16.4%.

Adding it all up, the stock reached an all-time high on its second day of trading and is already down 59% from that peak. With this big of a drop, is Figma now a bargain for long-term investors?

Two reasons Figma stock is down

This isn’t one of my two reasons, but it’s worth mentioning that Figma had its initial public offering (IPO) only weeks ago. Regardless of whether an IPO stock is high quality or low quality, volatility is common in these early months.

Figma was practically guaranteed to give investors a wild ride, simply because it’s a recent IPO. It’s why some investors avoid IPO stocks entirely.

General IPO volatility aside, Figma reported results for the second quarter of 2025 on Sept. 3, its first report as a publicly-traded company, and it underwhelmed the investor community. This is one of the reasons the stock is down.

In the second quarter, the company generated revenue of $250 million, which was good for 41% year-over-year growth. In isolation, 41% growth is absolutely stellar.

But there is a twofold concern here. First, this is a deceleration from the 46% growth it reported in the first quarter. Second, the deceleration is only just beginning, according to management.

For the third quarter, Figma expects 33% revenue growth at the midpoint of its guidance range. Again, this is a strong number in isolation but a sharp drop-off for its growth rate nevertheless. And for all of 2025, the company is guiding for a 37% jump from the previous year. This full-year guidance implies just a 30% growth rate for the fourth quarter.

Figma went public and initially surged based on its potential as a growth stock, but its growth is quickly slowing — that’s the first problem. Here’s the second problem: At its peak, the stock traded at over 66 times sales.

Data by YCharts; PS ratio= price-to-sales ratio.

I’ve seen stocks trade at a lofty valuation such as this and still provide investors with positive long-term returns. That being said, this is usually the case for businesses that are still accelerating their top line.

In short, it seems that investors were willing to pay a high price for Figma stock out of the gate, assuming its growth would continue to impress. But looking beyond the initial hype, revenue growth is trending downward, and investors are rethinking the valuation.

Projecting Figma’s performance from here

The Forbes 2000 is a list of 2,000 of the largest publicly-traded companies in the world — these are big fish. And to its credit, Figma has already landed most of them. It counts 78% of the Forbes 2000 as customers, showing how widely adopted its software is.

Moreover, around two-thirds of its customers use three or more of its software products. As far as software businesses go, that’s a strong adoption rate.

However, for investors looking to buy the stock today, this is counterintuitively a headwind. There are relatively few big customers that it could win from here. And upselling its customers to more services is challenging because of how many have already adopted multiple Figma products. With this context, a slowdown in growth makes perfect sense.

In other words, Figma’s business is already so successful that it makes incremental growth harder to find. Some investors may object to this statement, considering the company is still calling for double-digit growth in 2025.

But consider that the company raised its prices by over 20% earlier this year. Much of the growth it’s projecting comes from charging higher prices, which can’t be too regular an occurrence without risking excessive customer churn.

Personally, I believe Figma stock will underperform the market going forward. After all, it’s still trading at over 30 times sales despite the recent sell-off, making it one of the more richly valued software stocks out there. If its revenue growth continues to slow, the valuation will likely keep coming down.

Figma needs something that will truly help the business sustain its growth. The good news is it has $1.6 billion in cash and marketable securities at its disposal that can fund a lot of research and development or fuel acquisitions. But for now, the valuation risk is elevated due to its slowing growth — I wouldn’t buy the stock right now, even after its 59% drop.

The S&P 500 has continued to notch new record highs this year, thanks in large part to soaring interest in artificial intelligence (AI) technology, which is fueling massive spending on both hardware and software. But as impressive as the S&P 500’s 17% gains over the past year have been, they pale in comparison to AI data analytics company BigBear.ai Holdings‘ (BBAI 9.63%) 273% climb over that period.

When a stock delivers returns like this in such a short amount of time, it’s understandable that some investors might start to think that buying and holding it could help them retire as millionaires. We’re in the early innings of AI, after all, so why can’t brighter days still be ahead for this stock?

Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s the right way to think about BigBear.ai. In fact, it might be best not to own this stock right now at all. 

Why BigBear.ai stock is soaring

There’s a lot of optimism among investors right now surrounding artificial intelligence stocks, as companies and governments invest in AI data center infrastructure and increase their use of AI software. One way BigBear.ai is tapping into this demand is by offering AI logistics and analytics, which can improve the efficiency of everything from supply chains to national security.

Management says the company’s total addressable market was $80 billion in 2024, but it forecasts that it could grow to $272 billion by 2028 for the combined private and public sectors. Part of the enthusiasm for the company’s shares comes as the U.S increases its spending on AI defense, a market that could be worth up to $70 billion by the mid-2030s. BigBear.ai makes a “significant portion” of its revenue from government contracts, and AI defense is an important component of its potential.

Also, because AI stock enthusiasm is sky high right now, BigBear.ai has at times surged for no obvious reason. Case in point: Last week, after trending down over a period of a couple of months, it jumped by more than 10% in a single session on no news at all.

Why BigBear.ai won’t help you retire a millionaire

If the good news is that BigBear.ai’s stock has made impressive gains over the past year (albeit quite bumpy ones), the bad news is that the company has little to show in the way of growth. Revenue fell 18% year over year to $32.5 million in Q2, following another decline in Q1.

With sales slipping, management recently cut its revenue guidance for the year to about $132 million — 22% lower than the midpoint of its previous forecast. Lower sales volumes from some government contracts were the problem during the quarter, but upon closer inspection of the details, BigBear.ai’s situation doesn’t look much better.

The company’s gross margins slid to 25% in the quarter, down from nearly 28% in the year-ago period. That continued a pattern of inconsistency over the past year. Worse, BigBear.ai is nowhere near profitable. Its non-GAAP (adjusted) earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) came to a loss of $8.5 million in the quarter, significantly worse than its adjusted loss of $3.7 million in Q2 2024.

The picture that should be coming into focus here is that BigBear.ai isn’t much of a growth stock. A temporary slowdown in business could be forgivable, but that’s not happening with the company. Instead, its sales continue to slide, and its losses are widening.

With all that in mind, I have serious doubts that BigBear.ai stock could grow from here in a way that would help its shareholders retire as millionaires. The stock is riding the AI wave right now, but financial reality will eventually catch up with it.

Chris Neiger has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk (NVO -0.16%) recently turned a lot of heads with exciting news regarding Wegovy, its anti-obesity treatment.

Results of the Steer study showed that treatment with Wegovy reduced patients’ risk of heart attack, stroke, or death from any cause by 57%, compared with Eli Lilly‘s (LLY 0.25%) Zepbound.

A big risk reduction is the sort of thing that gets the attention of physicians who must choose between prescribing Wegovy or Zepbound. With this in mind, many investors are assuming the Steer study makes Novo Nordisk a screaming buy right now.

Before logging in to your brokerage application to fill your portfolio with Novo Nordisk shares, let’s cover some important details that investors new to the pharmaceutical industry might have missed.

Proof of superiority?

The Steer study was not a traditional clinical trial that enrolled thousands of patients and randomized them to receive either Wegovy or Zepbound. It was a “real world” study gathered from patient experiences.

Zepbound is known to reduce weight faster than Wegovy, but the increased efficacy comes with a cost. Zepbound, as a dual agonist of GLP-1 and GIP receptors, isn’t as easily tolerated as Wegovy, which only acts on GLP-1 receptors. The benefit observed could have more to do with factors that persuaded patients, and their physicians, to choose Wegovy or Zepbound in the first place.

The 57% risk reduction was observed among patients who stayed on treatment. As it’s a less easily tolerated drug, though, we can expect a significantly higher percentage of Zepbound patients to discontinue treatment before receiving any cardiovascular risk reduction benefit. Wegovy’s cardiovascular risk reduction compared with Zepbound fell to 29% once the Steer study adjusted for treatment gaps.

Finally, the Steer study results include 4.3 months of follow-up observation for patients on Zepbound but just 3.8 months for patients on Wegovy. There were 15 cardiovascular events recorded among patients taking Wegovy compared to 39 among patients on Zepbound. A significantly longer follow-up period for patients on Zepbound is at least partly responsible for the higher rate of observed cardiovascular events.

Plenty of room for Wegovy

The Food and Drug Administration approved tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Zepbound, in 2022. Semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy, was first approved about four and a half years earlier.

In the first half of 2025, total semaglutide sales reached a whopping $17.7 billion. Eli Lilly’s tirzepatide is hot on semaglutide’s heels, with total sales that reached $14.7 billion in the first half.

While tirzepatide will probably continue to gain market share, there’s going to be plenty of room for semaglutide sales to continue climbing. The overall market for GLP-1 drugs is expected to reach $150 billion by 2030, and we’re going to need an option that’s more easily tolerated than tirzepatide.

The real-world Steer study won’t do half as much to persuade physicians to prescribe semaglutide as the Select clinical trial from a couple of years ago did. Patients randomized to receive semaglutide showed a 20% reduction in their risk of heart attack or stroke compared with the placebo group. Semaglutide is also the only GLP-1 currently approved to treat metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis, an obesity-related liver condition that affects millions of Americans.

A bargain now

In the first half of 2025, Novo Nordisk reported sales that rose 16% year over year. More encouraging was an operating profit that soared by 25% year over year.

Novo Nordisk’s stock price has been beaten down because management warned of a slowdown. In August, the company told us to expect operating profit to grow by 10% to 16% in 2025 if we ignore currency exchange rates.

After falling hard this year, Novo Nordisk stock is trading at the low valuation of just 14.6 times forward-looking earnings expectations. That’s an appropriate valuation for a company you expect to grow earnings by a mid-single-digit percentage over the long run. Novo Nordisk signaled a slowdown, but earnings growth at a double-digit percentage still seems likely over the next several years. Scooping up some shares at their beaten-down price seems like the right move for most investors.

Shares of Shopify (SHOP -1.05%) soared after the e-commerce software company reported strong results and issued upbeat guidance, saying an expected tariff effect has not materialized.

The stock is now up more than 40% year to date, and up over 180% during the past year, as of this writing.

Strong results and upbeat outlook

After issuing conservative guidance last quarter, Shopify was decidedly more upbeat this time around. Meanwhile, its second-quarter results easily soared past its earlier cautious guidance. The company grew its Q2 revenue by 31% to $2.68 billion, which was well ahead of the $2.55 billion analyst consensus, as compiled by LSEG.

Gross merchandise volume (GMV) on its platform also jumped 31% to $87.8 billion, led by a 42% increase in international GMV. Europe was particularly strong, with GMV soaring 49%. The company’s consumer-facing Shop App, meanwhile, saw GMV skyrocket 140%, helped by artificial intelligence (AI) enhancements.

Overall merchant solution revenue climbed 37% to $2 billion, helped by GMV growth and the increased penetration of Shopify Payments, its payment processing platform. Shopify Payments has expanded into 60 new countries just this year, with multi-currency support now available in 20 countries.

Subscription revenue, meanwhile, increased by nearly 17% to $656 million, helped by higher-priced subscription plans.

Shopify continues to add more large brands to its platform, including Starbucks, Canada Goose, and Signet Jewelers, among others. It said the type of clients it serves keeps expanding, as seen by it adding Boart Longyear, a global leader in mining and drilling services. That’s a far cry from the small, drop-ship businesses that Shopify was once known for serving as its primary customer base.

Looking ahead, Shopify forecast third-quarter revenue growth at a mid-to-high twenties percentage rate. That’s above the 21.7% growth that analysts were forecasting, according to StreetAccount.

The company said it has not seen any major changes in demand or buyer behavior related to tariffs, although many of its merchants have raised prices. It said any potential effect from the elimination of the de minimis exemption by the U.S. is still early, but that only 4% of its GMV globally is currently shipped under the exemption.

Meanwhile, it is turning to AI to help drive growth. It’s created a Shopify Catalog that simplifies the process for apps and AI agents to search and pull product data to make sure results are up to date. It also just launched a Universal Cart, where customers can hold items from multiple stores all in one place.

Is it too late to buy the stock?

Shopify continues to demonstrate strong growth. It’s done a great job of moving upmarket, showing the power of its platform. At the same time, it’s starting to grow with its customers, as Shopify Payment adoption continues to increase. The company is also constantly innovating, which helps drive revenue for both it and its customers.

It’s expanding into new areas, as seen with the addition of Boart Longyear as a customer. Newer areas like offline and business-to-business, which saw its GMV double in the quarter, also continue to show strong growth.

International markets, particularly Europe, were a standout in Q2. With 68% of its revenue coming from the U.S. and Canada, the company has a massive opportunity to continue expanding internationally.

While the company is not immune to a consumer slowdown, thus far, it hasn’t seen any effect from tariffs. That’s a good sign.

Looking at valuation, Shopify now trades at a more than 18 times forward price-to-sales (P/S) ratio based on 2025 analyst estimates and 15 times 2026 estimates. That’s much higher than the 8 to 12 times multiple it has traded at in recent years.

While I like the strides that Shopify is making, I would not chase this recent rally, given its valuation and the weak U.S. job market.

Wolfspeed (WOLF 105.93%) stock is seeing massive gains in Monday’s trading. The company’s share price is up 96.6% as of 1 p.m. ET despite the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite indexes being down 1% and 0.9%, respectively, at the same point.

Before the market opened this morning, the silicon-carbide specialist announced that it had named Gregor van Issum as its next chief financial officer. The news prompted the stock to rocket higher, and it was up as much as 122.2% before 1 p.m.

Van Issum will be succeeding interim CFO Kevin Speirits and will step into the position on Sept. 1, at which point he’ll be helping to lead the company’s bankruptcy and financial restructuring proceedings. Wolfspeed stock tanked in May after it was reported that the company was preparing bankruptcy filings, and the business later confirmed it had filed petitions for reorganization under the Chapter 11 provision — but shares have now seen a substantial rebound.

Is Wolfspeed stock a buy right now?

Van Issum will bring more than two decades of experience in corporate restructuring and strategic financing to the CFO role at Wolfspeed, and today, investors are showing some hope that he’ll be able to guide a financial transition that will work out for current shareholders. On the other hand, Wolfspeed has a high level of debt, and current shareholders could still get wiped out as the new company issues shares to reset the balance sheet. While the stock could bound significantly above current levels, there’s also a high risk of investors losing a lot of their money.

Keith Noonan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Wolfspeed. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Nvidia (NVDA -2.85%) just delivered another record-breaking quarter, sending its stock up 5% and tying Microsoft as the most valuable publicly traded company by market capitalization, at the time of this writing. Despite the strong results, questions linger as the company faces mounting geopolitical pressure and tariff uncertainty. Let’s break down the chipmaker’s latest performance and explore what the current challenges mean for long-term investors to determine whether Nvidia is a buy, hold, or sell.

Here are the results from Nvidia’s latest blowout quarter

For the first quarter of fiscal 2026, Nvidia reported $44.1 billion in revenue, representing a 69% year-over-year increase and a 12% increase from its previous quarter, fiscal Q4 2025. Nvidia’s net income totaled $18.8 billion, a 26% increase year over year, despite the company incurring a $4.5 billion charge related to new U.S. export restrictions.

As for highlights, the company’s data center revenue surged to $39.1 billion in the quarter, representing a 73% increase from the prior year. Management also announced that it will be building factories in the U.S. in partnership with others to produce artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers, which may alleviate some tariff concerns.

Additionally, Nvidia continued to return capital to shareholders, with a modest quarterly dividend of $0.01 per share, and repurchased $14.1 billion worth of shares during the quarter. Notably, the management has spent $40 billion over the past 12 months on share buybacks, decreasing its share count by just 0.8% due to the company’s massive $3.4 trillion market capitalization.

Tariff twists and turns

While Nvidia continues to break records, it encountered the aforementioned geopolitical hiccup during the quarter. On April 9, the U.S. government abruptly required Nvidia to secure a license before shipping H20 chips to China. The problem? H2O was already deeply embedded in the company’s go-to-market strategy and had generated $4.6 billion in revenue during the quarter. Nvidia was left holding the bag on $4.5 billion worth of unsellable inventory and was unable to ship an additional $2.5 billion in orders before the restrictions took effect.

The China market, once seen as a dependable pillar of growth, now represents a major wildcard for Nvidia. With U.S. firms locked out, Nvidia warned that losing access to this near-$50 billion AI accelerator market would materially benefit foreign competitors.

Just after Nvidia released its fiscal Q1 earnings, another twist emerged: A federal court blocked President Donald Trump from using emergency powers to impose broad tariffs. While the decision, which the Trump administration intends to appeal, may ease trade tensions for now, it highlights how quickly trade policy can shift and put the brakes on Nvidia’s unparalleled growth.

Nvidia’s Blackwell is its next growth driver

Despite the company’s geopolitical headaches, Nvidia continues to innovate. Its Blackwell chips — designed for massive-scale AI workloads — are the company’s next big breakthrough, according to CEO Jensen Huang. To support its growth, the company launched Blackwell Ultra and Nvidia Dynamo during its latest quarter, designed to power the next generation of reasoning AI models. Huang said:

Global demand for Nvidia’s AI infrastructure is incredibly strong. AI inference token generation has surged tenfold in just one year, and as AI agents become mainstream, the demand for AI computing will accelerate. Countries around the world are recognizing AI as essential infrastructure — just like electricity and the internet — and Nvidia stands at the center of this profound transformation.

To support the development of its Blackwell product, Nvidia announced in April that it will build and test these chips in Arizona and its AI supercomputers in Texas. Given the company’s tariff concerns, it’s an unlikely coincidence that management chose the U.S. as the location for manufacturing its newest product.

Looking ahead, management projects $45 billion in revenue for its next quarter, plus or minus 2%. Notably, that outlook includes an $8 billion hit from ongoing H20 restrictions, which will continue to impact gross margins. When excluding the projected $8 billion loss, management believes it will achieve a range of “mid-70%” gross margins later in its fiscal 2026, which would be in line with its 75% gross margin for its previous fiscal year.

Is Nvidia a buy, sell, or hold?

Given Nvidia stock’s meteoric rise, it still trades at a steep 45 times trailing earnings. Yet the company has largely grown into that premium, with a three-year median price-to-earnings ratio of around 63.

As a clear leader in the fast-moving world of artificial intelligence, Nvidia continues to break new ground, most recently with its next-generation Blackwell chips and AI supercomputers. For growth-focused investors seeking exposure to transformative AI technology, Nvidia remains a compelling long-term investment, even amid geopolitical risks and an elevated valuation multiple.

Collin Brantmeyer has positions in Microsoft and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Microsoft and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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