On April 2, President Trump announced sweeping tariffs on America’s trading partners, which will increase the cost of physical goods coming into the country. The president’s goal is to encourage more companies to manufacture products domestically to drive job creation, but there is likely to be significant economic pain in the short term, especially as other countries are expected to respond with tariffs of their own.

Netflix (NFLX -6.63%) and Spotify (SPOT -9.84%) operate two of the world’s largest streaming platforms, and they could be great stocks to buy in the face of a potential trade war, for a few reasons:

• Digital goods aren’t impacted by tariffs (at least not yet, but this might be a future risk).
• Both companies have extremely diversified revenue streams because they operate in more than 180 countries worldwide.
• Both charge a relatively small monthly fee to hundreds of millions of customers, so tariffs probably wouldn’t raise prices enough to trigger mass cancellations.

Both Netflix stock and Spotify stock are down 13% from their all-time highs amid the volatility in the broader market, but they are actually outperforming the Nasdaq-100 technology index, which has plummeted by almost 17% from its high. Since it appears likely that trade tensions will persist for the foreseeable future, here’s why investors with a spare $1,500 (money they don’t need for immediate expenses) might want to buy one share of Netflix and one share of Spotify.

Image source: Netflix.

The case for Netflix

Netflix is the world’s largest streaming platform for movies and TV shows, with 301.6 million subscribers as of the end of 2024. It’s far ahead of Amazon Prime with an estimated 200 million subscribers (although Amazon doesn’t separate Prime subscribers from Prime Video users), and Disney‘s Disney+, with 124.6 million subscribers.

Netflix offers three subscription tiers: Standard with ads ($7.99 per month), Standard without ads ($17.99 per month), and Premium ($24.99 per month). The ad tier, which was introduced in November 2022, has been a massive success because of its cheap price point. In the fourth quarter of 2024, it accounted for 55% of all of Netflix’s signups in countries where it’s available. The number of subscribers using this plan also soared by almost 30% compared to the third quarter just three months earlier.

Ad-tier subscribers also become more valuable for Netflix over time, because as the membership base grows, the company can sell more advertising slots to businesses. Plus, the more time each subscriber spends on the platform each day, the more ads they see and the more revenue Netflix earns. The company said its advertising revenue doubled in 2024, and management expects it to double again in 2025.

Netflix is trying to accelerate that trend by investing heavily in live content because it keeps people engaged for longer periods of time. For example, it exclusively showed both Christmas Day NFL games last year. Each match typically runs for over three hours, so any subscriber who watched one of them from start to finish was on Netflix for much longer than the average member, who normally spends two hours on the platform per day.

Netflix generated a record $39 billion in total revenue in 2024. That translated to $8.7 billion in net income, which was a whopping 61% increase compared to 2023. Netflix remains one of the few pure-play streaming platforms generating consistent profits, despite outspending all of its peers to create and license content, which is a huge benefit of the company’s scale. Management expects to spend $18 billion to expand its slate during 2025, which could further extend its advantage over the competition.

Netflix stock trades at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 46.2 as of this writing, which isn’t necessarily cheap considering the Nasdaq-100 trades at a P/E ratio of 29.2. However, the stock is below its five-year average P/E ratio of 50.2, so investors have typically paid a premium for Netflix because of its growth and its dominant position in the streaming industry.

Plus, Wall Street’s consensus estimate (provided by Yahoo! Finance) suggests Netflix will grow its earnings per share (EPS) to $30.18 during 2026, which places its stock at a forward P/E ratio of 30.2. In other words, the stock would have to climb by 66% over the next two years just to trade in line with its five-year average P/E ratio of 50.2. That could be especially likely if Netflix becomes a tariff safe-haven for investors:

NFLX PE Ratio data by YCharts.

The case for Spotify

Spotify is the world’s largest music streaming platform. At the end of 2024, it had 425 million free users who are monetized through advertising, and 263 million Premium subscribers who pay a monthly fee for an ad-free experience. Paying users are far more valuable because they account for 87% of the company’s total revenue, so Spotify invests heavily in its platform to convince as many free users to become subscribers as possible.

Last year, the company launched a feature powered by artificial intelligence (AI) called AI Playlist, which is only available to Premium subscribers. It allows users to type in a prompt — whether it be a feeling, a movie, a color, or even an emoji — and it will produce a list of songs to match. It’s a creative way to keep users engaged, and perhaps explore music they wouldn’t have otherwise considered.

Spotify is also focused on growing its content catalog beyond music. It’s already one of the world’s largest platforms for podcasts, but it also entered the audiobook space in 2022 to expand its user base. Free users can’t access audiobooks at all, but Premium subscribers can listen to 15 hours worth of content each month for no extra charge — yet another way the company is enticing users to pay.

Spotify generated $17.3 billion in revenue during 2024, an 18% year-over-year increase, marking an acceleration from the 13% growth it delivered in 2023. Thanks to careful expense management, the company also delivered $1.2 billion in net income. It was the first profitable year in Spotify’s history, and the result was a big positive swing from the $587 million net loss it generated in 2023.

Since profitability is still new for Spotify, the traditional P/E ratio isn’t a good way to value its stock. Instead, we can use the price-to-sales (P/S) ratio, which divides the company’s market capitalization by its annual revenue. It currently stands at 6.8, which is near the highest level in Spotify’s history as a public company, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad buy right now.

SPOT PS Ratio data by YCharts.

A few years ago, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek issued a forecast suggesting the company’s revenue could hit $100 billion by 2032. A year later, he followed that up by predicting Spotify’s user base could surpass 1 billion by 2030. If those estimates come to fruition, investors willing to hold Spotify stock for the next five to seven years could be getting an absolute bargain by buying it today. If we assume global trade issues will persist for the next few years, owning this stock sounds like an even better idea.

With the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC 2.61%) down roughly 12% from its highs, many tech-related stocks have sold off heavily.

Making matters worse, some of these stocks just reported earnings that were less than perfect (according to the market), giving them a double whammy of negativity. Add in the uncertainty around tariffs at the moment, and the market has sold off numerous otherwise high-quality businesses out of fear.

One company squarely at the intersection of this trio of headwinds is global e-commerce enabler Global-e Online (GLBE 0.47%)

However, while the market has sent Global-e shares down 42% from their 2025 highs, I believe now is the time to buy the spectacular tech stock. Here are four reasons why it is a promising investment today.

1. Global-e Online is the leading force in a massive market

Selling products globally is often such a complicated task that most small businesses (and even some enterprise-sized companies) either can’t do it effectively, or don’t believe it is worth the hassle to even try.

That’s where Global-e Online’s end-to-end, global e-commerce platform takes over. Helping merchants in 30 countries (and counting) sell to over 200 countries across the globe, the company offers an array of solutions, including:

• Local pricing in 100-plus currencies
• Over 150 payment options
• Shipping options from more than 20 providers, along with local returns
• Messaging in over 30 languages
• Guaranteed calculations for local import duties and tariffs
• Zero-risk payment fraud management and assistance
• Know-how and data on each local market

Just how complex are these solutions?

Despite being one of the leaders in the e-commerce realm, Shopify chose to invest in and partner with Global-e rather than build out its own cross-border solutions. Powered by Global-e’s platform, the two combined to create Shopify Management Markets, which lets interested merchants in Shopify’s ecosystem sell in foreign markets. With 10,000 merchants using the service in just 18 months after its launch, it seems there is plenty of interest in doing so.

While businesses can try to go it alone when they sell internationally, they may be leaving money on the table. Merchants that switched to Global-e’s platform averaged a 40% uplift in international traffic conversion.

Global-e’s merchants are growing their gross merchandise volume by four to five times faster than the global e-commerce growth rate of 8% in 2024, demonstrating the company’s growth potential.

Increasing revenue by 32% in 2024 and guiding for 25% growth in 2025, Global-e should continue to rapidly gain share of a target addressable market that it believes is worth $3 trillion.

2. Tariffs and Global-e

While this guidance for 25% sales growth in 2025 was enough to keep me happy, it didn’t impress the market. Worried about the impact higher (or new) tariffs in the United States could have on Global-e’s business, the market seemed to take a sell-first, ask-questions-later stance on the stock.

However, co-founder and president Nir Debbi downplayed the impact of these tariffs during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call — even hinting that they could be a long-term benefit, stating:

We do believe that there will be uncertainty. It might affect short-term consumption. But overall, in the longer term, we do expect it will behave the same way we’ve seen in Brexit, where overall, it created much more demand for our services.

Put together, there will probably be short-term troubles, but they may create long-term value. To me, that’s a Foolish opportunity.

3. Improving margins hint at a wide moat

Lost amid Global-e’s “disappointing” Q4 results was the fact that the company reached break-even profitability for the first time in the quarter and expects to remain profitable going forward. Over the last two years, the company’s margins have rapidly improved, serving as a testament to the wide moat it is building around its operations.

GLBE Gross Profit Margin and Profit Margin (Quarterly) data by YCharts.

Global-e’s net dollar retention (NDR) rate of 123% or higher over the last four years also reinforces the idea that the company is building a wide moat. Measuring how much existing customers increase their sales from one year to the next, an NDR consistently above 120% shows that Global-e’s solutions are almost a “no-brainer,” and merchants are happy to spend more each year.

4. An all-time low valuation

Best yet for investors, despite Global-e’s leadership position, improving margins, and widening moat, the company trades at an all-time low valuation.

GLBE P/S and P/FCF Ratio data by YCharts.

Trading at 37 times free cash flow (FCF) — just slightly north of the S&P 500‘s (^GSPC 2.13%) average price-to-FCF ratio of 32 — Global-e’s growth (which is multiples higher than the market’s) appears cheaply priced.

Already one of my core holdings, I will be looking to add to Global-e Online soon as the company continues to forge its path as the leading global e-commerce enabler.