It's fair to say that this has been a challenging year for investors, and a lot of money has been moving to the sidelines. The silver lining is that most investments are a lot cheaper now than they were just a couple of weeks ago. If you're ready to nibble at the lower-priced possibilities -- even if it's just $100 -- I have some ideas.
I'm going to narrow my focus to investments trading for less than $10 apiece, but know that you will certainly find some great possibilities trading at much higher price tags if your broker allows you to buy fractional shares. It's never been easier to put any risk-tolerant money you have to work.
Voyager Digital (VYGV.F), Genius Sports (GENI -3.04%), and Polygon (MATIC 0.63%) are three investments -- two stocks and one cryptocurrency -- fetching single digit price tags. You can buy between 12 and 65 stocks or tokens with a single $100 investment. Let's see why these are moves that might make sense now.
Image source: Getty Images.
1. Voyager Digital
Crypto markets have been correcting sharply, and the same can be said about the publicly traded platforms for cryptocurrency investors. Voyager Digital is a fast-growing hub run by a former E*Trade executive. There aren't too many companies growing faster than Voyager these days, largely because the platform is still in its infancy. We're talking about year-over-year revenue growth of 15,122% in its fiscal year that ended last June, followed by 3,280% and a preliminary 4,433% in its first two quarters of fiscal 2022. It started the 2021 calendar year with just 43,000 accounts, topping 1 million users by the end of December.
Voyager isn't an exchange itself. It farms out the process across a dozen different exchanges and market makers. How does a platform grow from 43,000 to 1.075 million funded accounts -- and 3.2 million verified users -- in a single year? It has landed promotional deals with celebrities and sports venues. Voyager is still finding ways to stand out.
The appeal of Voyager is that it offers annualized interest rates as high as 12% on the crypto you do own on the platform. It offers even higher interest returns to accounts that also own Voyager's proprietary token that is now trading on several other exchanges. Later this year it will be rolling out a debit card where users can charge against the dollar-pegged USD Coin stablecoin they hold that's already earning 9% a year. The stock traded as high as $20 after shooting up the app download chart in November following a promotion with the Dallas Mavericks NBA team, but now it has fallen to the single digits. It's a risky investment -- like crypto itself -- but a company with a long runway for growth if it's able to build on its stunning growth of 2021.
2. Genius Sports
Were you lucky enough to catch any football action over the weekend? All four NFL playoff games were decided on the final play of each contest. You couldn't script it any better, and if you missed out -- or if you were checking on the scores and stats of the games -- you probably found yourself in the crosshairs of Genius Sports.
Genius Sports provides data and software solutions for the sportsbook and media industries. It has hundreds of long-term partnerships in place, and that includes the NFL where more than 97% of the U.S. market uses its official data. Genius Sports isn't just keeping score for sports fans, gamblers, fantasy sports enthusiasts, and journalists. It also helps many of its partners manage loyalty programs and a growing number of enterprise solutions.
Growth has been strong given the world's fascination with sports. Revenue soared 71% in its latest quarter. Analysts see Genius Sports' top line slowing to a still healthy 33% in 2022. It's not profitable, but it has a good story to tell with live sports continuing to be a major draw. It will get a golden opportunity to tell that story on Thursday morning when its hosts a virtual Investor Day.
3. Polygon
Most of the leading crypto denominations have corrected sharply, and Polygon is no exception. It hit an all-time high around the holidays, only to shed roughly half of its value over the past month. Polygon is a layer 2 network, helping scale Ethereum in a growing number of applications.
Without getting too far into the weeds, Ethereum is the world's second-most valuable crypto. It put smart contracts on the map, and even now in a world full of digital currencies it powers the majority of decentralized apps. The problem is that in its current state Ethereum is slow, expensive, and limited in processing bandwidth. The Polygon Network is a scaling solution -- a sidechain -- that runs along Ethereum to give it the benefits of Polygon's proof-of-stake model that it currently lacks.
Ethereum is expected to complete its migration to proof of stake as early as June of this year, and that could eat into the appeal or need for Polygon as a sidechain boost. It would still be a mistake to dismiss Polygon the moment that the Ethereum 2.0 migration is complete, and no one would be surprised if the process is delayed again or not as effective as what Polygon brings to the table. Along the way, Polygon continues to be a major player in decentralized apps.
