The Best Stocks to Buy Now: Five Picks to Put You on Tech's Frontier

Our new list of the best stocks to buy now aren't all tech companies, strictly speaking. But they're all leveraging technology to position themselves for long-term growth, proving once again that the road to wealth is paved with tech.

First, the Facebook of China is riding a hot streak and is set to keep "soaring," as its name suggests.

Then, a coffee company's digital payment system makes it the envy of the tech world.

Next, one of tech's biggest conglomerates takes a page out of Warren Buffett's playbook.

Then, the world's smallest heart pump helps combat the world's leading cause of death.

And finally, a top biometrics company is flying under Wall Street's radar.

Here are our best stocks to buy now...

Best Stocks to Buy Now, No. 1: This Chinese Tech Giant Makes Information (and Your Portfolio) Soar

China's biggest Internet stocks are on fire in 2017. And a quick look at the numbers shows why.

A report released this week showed that China's Internet user base grew to 751.16 million in June, up 6% from a year earlier. That's still just 54.3% of the world's most populous country, compared to 74.6% in the United States, which means there's still plenty of untapped upside.

One of the biggest beneficiaries of that growth is Tencent Holdings Ltd. (OTCMKTS: TCEHY), often called the "Facebook of China." Its English name comes from the Chinese characters teng and xun, meaning "soaring information." And the stock is indeed soaring, up nearly 75% in 2017. It just became the second Chinese company to pass $400 billion in market cap, after Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA) did it in July.

Tencent's social media platform WeChat, launched in 2011, dominates the Asian market, with 963 million monthly active users. In addition to social media, WeChat also provides personal messaging, shopping, and payment services, among others, prompting some to call it China's "app for everything."

But so far, it's gaming that's Tencent's real bread and butter. It is the world's largest gaming company by revenue. Its mobile game "Honor of Kings" has more than 50 million daily active users, and in the first quarter of 2017, it was the most downloaded app in the world on Apple Inc.'s (Nasdaq: AAPL) iOS App Store.

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The game is, in fact, too popular. Tencent was pressured by parents and teachers to put limits on game use for children over concerns that "Honor of Kings" was addictive. To Tencent's credit, it has restricted daily use for players who are 18 and under - with stricter limits for those under 12 - and implemented a system to identify and potentially ban players who show signs of addiction.

From a business standpoint, it's not a bad problem to have. "When you have something with that kind of appeal," Money Morning Technical Trading Specialist D.R. Barton, Jr., says, "you have a huge winner."

D.R. told CNBC World in August that Tencent's growth potential is "double" that of the big U.S. social media companies like Facebook Inc. (Nasdaq: FB).

Particularly if you're able to pick this one up on a dip, D.R. says, you'll be "very happy looking back a few years from now."

Best Stocks to Buy Now, No. 2: Wake Up! This Coffee Company Just Became a Must-Have for Your Portfolio

Stephen Mack

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Stephen Mack has been writing about economics and finance since 2011. He contributed material for the best-selling books Aftershock and The Aftershock Investor. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

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