The leaves are falling and the weather is getting cooler. You know what this means: It’s time to start thinking about next year.

We’re running out of months into 2024, and investors are increasingly focusing on what next year will bring and which stocks to buy now.

With that in mind, let’s turn our attention to three technology stocks that our Motley Fool contributors can’t stop thinking about: Meta Platforms (META -0.07%), Shift4 (FOUR 0.12%)And Microsoft (MSFT 0.99%).

Image source: Getty Images.

Meta’s shares are up 64% year to date, and 2025 could be just as good.

Jake Lerch (Meta Platforms): my choice Meta Platforms.

Simply put, Meta is a thriving business that generates plenty of revenue, profits and free cash flow. That’s why its stock is up 64% since the beginning of the year and more than 380% since the beginning of 2023.

In the company’s most recent earnings report (for the three months ending September 30, 2024), Meta reported revenue of $40.5 billion. Which one was it? up 19% year over year.

To begin with, that’s a staggering amount of income (for context, Starbucks Generates less than $40 billion in revenue along a whole year). Moreover, Meta increases this revenue at a dizzying rate of almost 20%.

Even better for shareholders, Meta turns most of that revenue into profit. The company reported net income of $15.7 billion, up 35% from a year ago.

Finally, free cash flow came in at $15.5 billion, which helped support the company’s cash reserves, which rose to $70.9 billion. This is important because there is a lot of money in the bank Gives Meta this ability Increasing shareholder returns through future dividend increases, share repurchases, strategic acquisitions or capital investments.

PrivilegedThere are concerns for the meta. Regulatory actions in both the US and US EU can hinder growth or profits. In addition, the company’s sudden attack on metadata and artificial intelligence It is expensive.

However, the reason for having Meta shares is the huge user base. The company has an average of more than 3.3 billion daily users (DAUs), representing approximately 41% of the world’s population.

When so many people are using one of Meta’s apps Every daycompany’s digital advertising business simply It’s too profitable to ignore. BecauseI expect the Meta to have another excellent year in 2025.

This fintech stock may remain unknown for much longer

Will Healy (Shift4 Payments, Inc.): Despite its long existence, Shift4 is far from a household name, even among the fintech stocks it competes with. CEO Jared Isaacman founded this company in 1999 to offer a faster payment processing alternative.

Over time, Shift4 has differentiated itself from fintech companies such as: PayPal And To obstruct By targeting restaurants and hospitality-related venues such as resorts, casinos and gyms. Its more high-profile clients include sports venues such as the Nobu Hotel, Yosemite National Park and Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the Indianapolis Colts.

It has also expanded beyond the United States to Canada, Japan and many countries in Europe, and maintains strategic partnerships in other countries. This approach has helped the company grow to serve more than 200,000 customers and process more than $260 billion in payments annually. Unsurprisingly, his financial situation reflects his success.

Revenue of $1.5 billion in the first six months of 2024 is up 30% from the previous year. Shift4 also keeps the increase in spending under control, net income This is due to Shift4’s 50% year-on-year increase to $60 million in the first half of the year.

Moreover, there was a 103% increase in the stock price last year, approaching the all-time highs reached in the 2021 bull market.

Forecasts show that the company’s growth is not slowing down. The P/E ratio is currently 55, and expected growth is so high that it has reduced the forward P/E ratio to just 18.

Such increases helped Shift4 quietly recover from the 2022 bear market. But as Shift4 stock approaches record highs, 2025 may be the year investors finally start paying attention to the stock. Therefore, it can be beneficial to open a position without others noticing.

Microsoft isn’t cheap, but it’s worth paying for.

Justin Pope (Microsoft): This is not a flashy choice. Still, it’s hard to deny that Microsoft is among the best tech stocks you can buy heading into 2025. Microsoft’s dramatic cloud growth in the company’s first quarter of fiscal 2025 was eye-opening. Azure is Microsoft’s cloud business and is where you’ll see most of the impact of artificial intelligence (AI). The cloud business was already growing rapidly, but AI is adding fuel to the fire because the cloud is how companies deploy and run AI applications.

In other words, AI is outsourcing jobs to cloud companies like Microsoft. The good thing is that Microsoft is just one of three companies that dominate the global cloud market.

Azure’s revenue grew 34% year-over-year in the first quarter of fiscal 2025, helping Microsoft deliver total revenue of $65.6 billion (16% growth) and earnings per share of $3.30 (10% growth). Both the top and bottom numbers beat Wall Street’s expectations. Azure’s growth has accelerated from last quarter’s 30% growth rate. Cloud exposure and integrations with Microsoft’s ChatGPT developer OpenAI making the stock arguably the safest way to gain definitive exposure to the growth tailwinds of AI.

Microsoft isn’t cheap — the $3.2 trillion company is trading at 31 times forward earnings estimates — but I think it’s reasonably priced. Analysts predict that Microsoft will grow its earnings at 15% annually over the next few years, which puts the stock’s current PEG ratio at about 2.2. This is usually about the upper end of what I pay for earnings growth of a high-end business, but Microsoft is a high-end business.

Considering the long-term growth opportunities of AI and Microsoft’s possible involvement in them, investors should feel good about paying a fair price for arguably the best tech stock to buy on the market today.