If you're ready to supercharge your portfolio this month with more of the best stocks, you've come to the right place. There are thousands of publicly traded companies for investors to pick from. If you're a long-term investor searching for top-notch businesses that you can hold on to for years, there's still a plethora of options to wade through.
If you have $2,000 available to expand your portfolio in October, here are two amazing companies to consider adding to your shopping cart.
Let's dive right in.
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1. Innovative Industrial Properties
Innovative Industrial Properties (IIPR +2.54%) is likely a familiar name to marijuana investors, but if you're newer to this space, this is a stock you won't want to miss. The real estate investment trust was founded in 2016, so it's a pretty new company. It became publicly traded in December of that year. Since that time, the stock has delivered share price gains of nearly 1,200%.
Innovative Industrial Properties has grown its portfolio of properties at a lightning-fast pace. It now owns 75 properties around the U.S. in prime marijuana markets. California, Colorado, Florida, and Nevada are just a handful of the states in which it has commercial facilities. The company leases these facilities to licensed medical marijuana operators, and its list of tenants includes some of the biggest names in the business (think Trulieve and Cresco Labs, to name a few).
In addition to its incredible share price growth over the past several years, the company is known for its robust dividend, which currently yields 2.5%. Considering that most marijuana stocks don't even pay a dividend, this makes this pot stock a particularly attractive investment for income seekers. Over the past three years alone, Innovative Industrial Properties has increased its dividend by nearly 330%.
IIPR Dividend data by YCharts
With its portfolio of properties expanding quickly into both newer and established markets and an impressive list of tenants that together account for a massive share of the U.S. cannabis industry, it should come as no surprise that Innovative Industrial Properties is also known for its impressive financial reports. In the most recent quarter, the company said that its top-line surged by more than 100% from the year-ago quarter. Not to be outdone, its bottom line popped by more than 120% year over year. And its adjusted funds from operations, important earnings metric to analyze when reviewing the performance of REITs specifically, jumped 104% year over year.
With its track record of strong share price appreciation as well as robust dividend increases, investors can enjoy the best of both worlds from a long-term investment in this stock.
2. Airbnb
With the travel industry still struggling to claw back to pre-pandemic levels, it's not surprising that some investors have been hesitant to put their money toward stocks in this sector. While it may be a few years before we see travel return to the pace it was keeping before the pandemic struck, that doesn't mean there aren't still compelling investments to be found within this industry. And if I had to pick one that stands out above the rest, it would most definitely be Airbnb (ABNB +2.90%).
The most recent quarter was full of high notes for the company, and investors are expecting great things from Airbnb in its upcoming third-quarter report (out on Nov. 11), as this period has historically been its most robust out of the fiscal year.
Although Airbnb still reported a net loss of $68 million in the second quarter, this was a vast improvement from the net loss of $1.2 billion it reported in the first quarter of 2021. In addition, its revenue and gross booking value in the second quarter of 2021 shot up by an incredible 300% and 320% year over year, respectively. At the same time, nights and experiences booked on the platform rose 197% compared to the second quarter of 2020.
While other more traditional plays within the travel industry, such as airline stocks, are struggling to stay above water, Airbnb is quickly regaining ground after the tumult of 2020. Although this hasn't yet been reflected in its share price (shares are up only around 23% year to date), I think this simply indicates ongoing wariness among some investors given that the pandemic is still ongoing, variants are spreading, and we're heading into the cold-weather season.
All that said, the quality of Airbnb's business hasn't diminished. Patient investors who scoop up the stock at its current price could see some momentous gains in the coming years as the travel industry rebounds. And as Warren Buffett says, "All there is to investing is picking good stocks at good times and staying with them as long as they remain good companies."
