Despite TSMC’s strong growth and strong outlook, its shares remain cheap.
Despite its agent artificial intelligence (AI) opportunity, Salesforce has been consigned to the bargain bin.
Meta Platforms is the cheapest among large tech stocks and is seeing strong growth driven by artificial intelligence.
10 stocks we like better than TSMC ›
Even with the market hovering near all-time highs, there are still bargains to be found. While gains in tech stocks have driven the market higher, there are bargains out there, too.
If you have $10,000 in free cash that you don’t need to use to shore up an emergency fund or pay down short-term debt, you might want to use it to buy these stocks before they move higher this year. Here are three cheap tech stocks that you could allocate $10,000 to in 2026 and beyond.
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TSMC(NYSE:TSM) It is at the heart of building artificial intelligence (AI), and without its expertise in making advanced chips, the AI boom may never have taken off. Still, the stock remains attractively valued, trading at about 23 times forward price-to-earnings (P/E) and a forward price-to-earnings (PEG) ratio of 0.7 based on analysts’ forecasts for 2026. Stocks with a positive PEG ratio below 1 are generally considered undervalued.
TSMC has become a de facto monopoly in mass-manufacturing AI chips, given the difficulties its rivals have in high-volume production of advanced chips – producing chips with extremely low defect rates. Chip designers are eager to get additional capacity from TSMC’s fabs (fabrication facilities), leading the company to recently announce a significant increase in capital expenditures (capex) in 2026 as it builds more fabs. This also gives the company strong pricing power, with reports that it has already given customers a four-year price increase plan. This also helped it expand its gross profit margin, which rose 330 basis points to 62.3% in the first quarter.
For its growth prospects and valuation, TSMC is a cheap stock to buy.
Artificial intelligence isn’t making everything better in the tech industry, as the software-as-a-service (SaaS) space is generally in disarray. There are concerns that AI will disrupt these businesses by reducing seats or organizations using AI to create their own in-house software platforms. However, so-called ambient coding is unlikely to replace complex software platforms that are ingrained within organizations, and SaaS companies will likely adapt and evolve.
One company that has been thrown into the bargain bin due to these concerns is salesperson(NYSE: CRM)Currently, the company trades at a forward price-to-sales (P/S) multiple of just over 4.5 and a forward price-to-earnings ratio of about 17. However, the company is already transforming itself and positioning itself as a leader in agent artificial intelligence. AI agents are the next evolution of AI and help create a digital workforce, but AI has been found to perform more accurately when it can draw from clean, structured data from a single source.
By launching Data Cloud (now Data 360), which can collect data from cloud computing providers and database warehouses, and acquiring master data management company Informatica, Salesforce has positioned itself as the master record of an organization’s data, upon which its AI agents can act. This is a huge differentiator and value proposition that should be a huge growth driver for the company going forward.
One of the cheapest large-cap tech stocks, meta platform(NASDAQ: META) It trades at a forward P/E ratio of just over 18, while the PEG ratio is below 0.9. However, this valuation isn’t because the company has been struggling; In fact, quite the opposite.
Meta’s revenue growth has been driven by artificial intelligence, with its overall revenue growth accelerating to 26% last quarter. The company has been using artificial intelligence to improve its recommendation algorithms, giving users more content that interests them, keeping them on the site longer and allowing more ads to be shown to users.
At the same time, AI-driven tools are helping advertisers design better campaigns, improve user targeting and increase conversion rates, thereby increasing ad prices. In the third quarter, Meta’s ad impressions increased by 14% and ad prices increased by 10%.
Going forward, the company will continue to invest heavily, and it looks like it will wisely reduce its spending at Reality Labs (the home of its expensive Metaverse venture) in favor of artificial intelligence, where it is seeing a return on investment. At the same time, the company has solid growth opportunities ahead as it begins to gradually introduce advertising into its WhatsApp messaging platform and new social network Threads.
Meta is a great stock to buy at a low price, given its valuation and growth opportunities.
Before buying TSMC stock, consider the following factors:
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Geoffrey Seiler works at Meta Platforms and Salesforce. The Motley Fool has jobs and recommendations for Meta Platforms, Salesforce, and TSMC. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Got $10,000? These 3 stocks could be bargain buys in 2026 and beyond. Originally posted by The Motley Fool
