As Thanksgiving rolls on, Americans across the country shift their attention to hunting down the best holiday bargains — and investors are no different. Just like shoppers scanning for deals, investors are searching for standout opportunities poised to benefit from the season’s spending surge. This holiday weekend, as Black Friday spending and Cyber Monday get set to turbocharge online retail activity, three consumer-cyclical players—Trip.com (TCOM), MercadoLibre (MELI), and Amazon (AMZN)—are emerging as timely opportunities for investors.
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Trip.com, MercadoLibre, and Amazon stand out as compelling opportunities for investors seeking value and performance during this holiday season. Each company enjoys strong support from Wall Street analysts, carries a high Smart Score rating, and is projected to deliver gains exceeding 20% in 2026—an outlook that places them firmly on the radar of growth-minded investors.
Moreover, these three consumer-focused specialists boast robust business models, expanding revenue streams, and favorable competitive positioning as they head into the most important retail window of the year. Their exposure to travel demand, e-commerce acceleration, and digital marketplace expansion provides a well-rounded snapshot of the consumer-cyclical sector’s resilience and potential in the months ahead.
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN)
Amazon’s overall stock score is driven by strong financial performance and positive earnings call sentiment, particularly in AWS and advertising growth. However, technical analysis indicates short-term weakness, and the high P/E ratio suggests a premium valuation. Cash flow management remains an area for improvement.
Most recently, AMZN has proved that it can still spring a surprise for investors. Having generated $180.2 billion in net sales for Q3, up ~13% year-over-year, Amazon has the means to remind investors that, despite the hype around smaller, faster-growing firms, it can still move the needle in tough market conditions.
What really jumps off the page is how evenly Amazon’s growth is spread across its core operations. North America delivered $106.3 billion in revenue, up 11%, while the international business climbed 14% to roughly $41 billion. When a company as massive as Amazon is still posting double-digit gains across multiple regions, it’s a strong hint that the engine isn’t running anywhere near full throttle — and that there may be plenty of room left for further market expansion.
Is Amazon a Buy, Hold, or Sell?
On Wall Street, AMZN stock carries a Strong Buy consensus rating based on 43 Buy, one Hold, and zero Sell ratings over the past three months. AMZN’s average stock price target of $295.23 implies approximately 26% upside potential over the next twelve months.
MercadoLibre (NASDAQ:MELI)
If Amazon represents scale and Trip.com captures the global travel rebound, MercadoLibre is the purest expression of Latin America’s digital transformation — and Q3’25 underscored that once again. The company delivered its 27th straight quarter of 30%+ revenue growth, a streak stretching seven years, and a sign that MercadoLibre isn’t simply benefiting from regional momentum; it’s shaping it.
Management attributes this consistency to a mix of widening access to credit and payments, a stronger marketplace value proposition, and a relentless effort to remove friction from online shopping. That long-running investment cycle is now paying off: market share is up, customer satisfaction scores are at record highs, and both margins and cash flow have steadily strengthened over the years.
What makes MercadoLibre particularly compelling in this trio is how visibly its ecosystem is compounding. A single strategic change — lowering Brazil’s free-shipping threshold to R$19 — triggered a surge in new buyers, the fastest growth since the pandemic era. That, in turn, boosted sold-item volume, accelerated GMV growth, and drove a flood of new merchant listings in the price band newly eligible for free shipping. It’s a classic flywheel effect: cheaper shipping attracts more shoppers, more shoppers attract more sellers, and more sellers expand choice and conversion.
Is MercadoLibre a Strong Buy?
On Wall Street, MELI stock carries a Strong Buy consensus rating based on 11 Buy, one Hold, and zero Sell ratings over the past three months. MELI’s average stock price target of $2,810.83 implies approximately 35% upside potential over the next twelve months.
Trip.com Group (NASDAQ:TCOM)
If MercadoLibre illustrates the power of digital ecosystems and Amazon showcases global scale, Trip.com represents something different altogether: the resurgence of worldwide travel and the rise of Asia as the engine of post-pandemic mobility. In Q3 2025, the company delivered a reminder that travel demand hasn’t just recovered — it has evolved. International bookings across Trip.com’s OTA platforms jumped nearly 60% year-over-year, inbound travel doubled, and outbound flight and hotel bookings reached 140% of 2019 levels. That’s not growth off a low base; it’s structural, cross-border travel demand accelerating beyond pre-pandemic norms. As Executive Chairman James Liang put it, travelers’ “enduring passion to explore the world” hasn’t budged, even amid macro uncertainty.
That momentum flowed straight into the financials. Trip.com posted RMB18.3 billion (~$2.6 billion) in net revenue — up 16% from a year ago — with every major business line showing healthy expansion. Accommodation bookings rose 18%, transportation ticketing increased 12%, and packaged tours, one of the more volatile categories, jumped 49% sequentially on summer seasonality. In short: people weren’t just traveling; they were traveling further, booking more stays, and spending more across the full spectrum of Trip.com’s offerings. Even corporate travel, historically slower to rebound, registered double-digit growth.
What stands out is how much of Trip.com’s strategy is now tied to technology rather than pure volume. The company is leaning hard into AI — personalizing itineraries, smoothing the booking journey, and powering its much-talked-about “Taste of China” program, designed to make inbound travel more immersive.
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