Most investors don’t mind risking a few hundred bucks to take a flier on a high-risk/high-reward prospect. When you’re looking to put a few thousand bucks on the table though, thing change. That’s not a throw-away amount of money for most households. You’ll take a little less upside in exchange for less risk.

With that as the backdrop, here’s a rundown of three names to consider stepping into if you’re ready to put $5,000 to work in the stock market.

Image source: Getty Images.

Fluor

Last year wasn’t a great one for heavy-construction outfit Fluor (FLR +4.60%). Largely thanks to economic uncertainty, full-year revenue is expected to shrink by nearly 4%. That’s ultimately why the stock’s now priced right around where it was as of the middle of 2024.

But there’s a case to be made for buying a stake in FLR stock here and now, in anticipation of better days ahead. That is, many infrastructure projects simply can’t be postponed any longer.

Today’s Change

(4.60%) $2.07

Current Price

$47.04

Then there’s the underappreciated facet of the long-term bullish argument for Fluor. That’s its experience in constructing nuclear power facilities. With the need for electricity soaring, by 2050 the U.S. Department of Energy aims to triple the amount of nuclear power being produced within the United States alone. That’s going to require at least a few dozen new reactors, boding well for this company’s business.

Palo Alto Networks

You didn’t hear nearly as much about it this time around as you have in the past; there’s simply too much else going on. But the Identity Theft Resource Center reports that there were a record-breaking 3,322 data breaches last year, up 79% from 2020’s count, and exposing personal sensitive information for millions of people.

Clearly the problem isn’t simply going away — it’s getting worse! And that’s just one type of cyberattack. That figure underscores the need for high-level cybersecurity services from industry leader Palo Alto Networks (PANW +3.01%), which is expected to report top-line growth of 14% this year followed by 13% growth next year.

Palo Alto Networks

Today’s Change

(3.01%) $4.66

Current Price

$159.43

Yes, like Fluor, this ticker’s not been able to sustain any net progress since 2024. Don’t be too dissuaded, though. Analysts aren’t. Most of them still consider PANW a strong buy, with a consensus price target of $228.79 that’s 37% above the stock’s present price.

IBM

Finally, add International Business Machines (IBM +3.12%) to your list of stocks to invest $5,000 in right now; you of course know it as IBM. If you know the company at all, then you likely know it was largely left out of some of the more recent technological leaps like cloud computing, mobile, and most recently, artificial intelligence.

IBM’s fought its way back to a seat at the table, however, and then some. Last quarter’s year-over-year revenue growth of 12% was mostly driven by sales AI-capable mainframes and software, with particularly strong showings from automation and data management software.

International Business Machines

Today’s Change

(3.12%) $9.04

Current Price

$298.93

In other words, IBM is now very much in the thick of the artificial intelligence race, even if most investors don’t yet realize it. Perhaps more important to interested investors, one-third of this software-centric company’s revenue is recurring, leaving it much better shielded from a popping of any AI bubble than the stock’s performance since late last year suggests.