Stockmarket thoroughbreds to buy now

With the rand currently hovering around R16.50/$, there is absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t use this moment of currency strength to buy a few offshore stocks and ETFs using your offshore allowance. Here are a few options to consider:

Broadcom (AVGO: NASDAQ)

I really wanted to choose Nvidia, the chipmaker operating in “another galaxy” to so many other pretenders when it comes to AI, according to the experts.  

It would have been entirely justifiable too, given how its graphics processing units sell for about $30,000 compared to an average chip price of $2.40. But that seemed so … predictable, so 2022.  

Instead, I’m going to pick Broadcom, the other leg of the AI Goliath lumbering in an uneven path across the investment markets. This Palo Alto-based hardware company makes custom chips for data centres, alongside a less enthralling, but immensely profitable and growing software business too.  

Its biggest clients include companies such as Google and Meta, with the end users being AI firms like OpenAI and Anthropic. For some, its chips are more efficient for certain algorithms than Nvidia’s.  

Analysts at JPMorgan, in naming Broadcom as the hot tip for 2026, pointed out that its profits have grown 32% annually over the past decade and it has rarely faltered. Of course the stock is expensive – its forward p:e ratio is 33 – but the growth projections vastly exceed most others in its space.  

Of the 48 analysts who cover it, the average target price expected over one year is $457 – 34% higher than its current level. If its most unmitigated advocates are right, its share price could even rise more than 50%.  

Is this a bubble? Well, maybe – but only to the extent that you think AI, and the potential of this technology to reconfigure industry and productivity, is a bubble. Rob Rose 

Constellation Energy (CEG: NASDAQ)

Constellation Energy offers a play on the fact that the AI-driven boom will need power – and loads of it. It also gets you into the game without having to buy another chipmaker or tech firm at a massive multiple. 

Bloomberg put it on its “Companies to Watch” list for 2026, because in a world suddenly needing vast amounts of electricity for AI data centres, Constellation Energy keeps the lights on – cleanly, and at scale. It’s the largest nuclear operator in the US, and nuclear is having a moment because it delivers steady, carbon-free base-load power that doesn’t falter when the wind drops or the sun is blocked. 

There are risks, though. Nuclear is capital-intensive, operational mishaps are expensive, and policies can change quickly. 

Still, Constellation Energy has a demand tailwind, improving earnings visibility via longer-dated contracts, and a narrative that doesn’t need hype to make sense. Vernon Wessels

Fraport (FRA: DE)

My brother-in-law reckons Frankfurt airport is the worst in the world, hands down, for confusing signage and making you run kilometres between gates. I don’t disagree, but in the spirit of picking a not-so-boring utility making hay out of our insatiable demand to go places, I thought an airport operator might do the trick. 

Fraport’s third-quarter earnings, released in November, smashed expectations – coming in at €593m, against consensus views of €533m. Its free cash flow was well up, taking it back to positive cash territory for the first time since Covid. And some wilder corners of the internet reckoned the company’s share price was 50% undervalued at a price of €68; Fraport is now trading at €74.15, so there’s still some way to go if you believe that estimate. 

Ironically, Frankfurt is its worst performer (it has airports in Lima and the Turkish Riviera), due to “excessively high government-imposed air traffic taxes”. If the German government is serious about kickstarting the German economy, this would seem a good place to start, and Fraport would surely benefit. Giulietta Talevi 

Hanwha (000880: KS)

Selecting a defence-related share could give the impression I’ve been overly influenced by recent events, which is never a good idea when you’re looking for a long-term investment. (Long-term in this instance being a mere 12 months.) 

But even before President Donald Trump’s incursion into Venezuela I had spotted South Korean-based Hanwha as a potential 2026 star performer. Sadly, I hadn’t spotted it eight to 12 months earlier. If I had and had actually bought a shed load of it at that stage I might now be able to afford to buy a bunker somewhere in New Zealand, perhaps next door to Peter Thiel, where I could sit out the next few interesting years. 

Hanwha has operations in aerospace, defence, energy, finance, retail and technology. It is of course aerospace and defence that are currently of most interest. Hanwha’s share price rocketed in the second half of last year after governments across the globe were prodded into looking closely at their defence capabilities by dire threats of global conflagration. Unsurprisingly defence ministers and Nato wallahs decided they needed lots more gear to play with. 

Their options included extremely expensive European kit or Korean armaments. The latter is considered quicker to access as well as cheaper and more reliable. Enough opted for the Korean offering to propel Hanwha’s share price into uncharted territory. 

While this pumped up the share price last year, there’s enough in the news pipeline to ensure the share keeps running for much of 2026. For instance, in the trade deal it signed with Trump, Seoul agreed to invest $350bn in the US, part of which will be used for shipbuilding, with Hanwha the likely builder. Ann Crotty

Northrop Grumman (NOC: NYSE)

Northrop Grumman is my bet on Trump being Trump: bullish, and permanently itching for a foreign distraction to take the focus off home and play out his own reality show.  

Whether it’s Venezuela, hitting the Islamic State in Nigeria, eyeing Greenland like it’s a property listing, or reminding Nato who’s paying the bar tab, America is arming up. 

Northrop is in the middle of this, building the missile defence, space systems and strategic backbone behind the US’s Golden Dome vision: a permanent, layered defence architecture. I know this is a cynical pick, but I’m leaning into it. Sarah Buitendach

Rocket Lab (RKLB: NASDAQ)

I just love the fact that this rocket company is run by a New Zealander, Peter Beck, who doesn’t even have a matric, never mind an aeronautical degree; some people you just can’t keep down.  

Rocket Lab is now not only building and launching rockets, but building missile-tracking satellites for the US Space Development Agency and getting gobs of cash for doing so.  

Rocket Lab reported Q3 2025 revenue of $155m (+48% year on year). SpaceX is likely to list in the US in 2026 at a valuation of perhaps $1.5-trillion, and that can’t be bad for other players in the industry. Tim Cohen 

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