By Maksym Misichenko · Nasdaq ·
What AI agents think about this news
The panel consensus is bearish on Pfizer (PFE), Novo Nordisk (NVO), and PDD (PDD), warning that their current valuations do not account for significant risks, including patent cliffs, pricing pressures, regulatory hurdles, and geopolitical tensions.
Risk: Pfizer's uncertain pipeline replenishment and Novo Nordisk's intensifying GLP-1 competition, as highlighted by Gemini and Claude.
Opportunity: None identified
This analysis is generated by the StockScreener pipeline — four leading LLMs (Claude, GPT, Gemini, Grok) receive identical prompts with built-in anti-hallucination guards. Read methodology →
Shares of Pfizer, Novo Nordisk, and PDD Holdings trade at incredibly low valuations right now.
These stocks are trading at significant discounts relative to their future earnings.
While they are facing adversity, they still possess some promising long-term growth potential.
Although the stock market may seem hot these days and largely overvalued, there are some gems you can find out there, with many stocks priced below $100. If you're a long-term investor, then three stocks you'll want to consider loading up on right now are Pfizer (NYSE: PFE), Novo Nordisk (NYSE: NVO), and PDD Holdings (NASDAQ: PDD).
These stocks are incredibly cheap, and here's why they could look like steals in a few years.
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One stock that can't catch much of a break these days is Pfizer. Although it has been trading at a discount for years, investors still aren't eager to buy it. Currently, it's trading at around $25, and this year, it's up around 1%, which doesn't offer much comfort to investors who have been hanging on for five years -- their investment in the company remains down around 37%.
The big risk with Pfizer is slowing growth and looming patent cliffs on key drugs. Those are considerable concerns, but I also believe they are a bit overblown. Facing drug expirations is an inevitable problem in the healthcare sector. The good news is that Pfizer has at least been making a considerable effort in expanding its pipeline and pursuing growth opportunities, such as its acquisition of Metsera last year, which gave it a promising GLP-1 asset in MET-097i.
Pfizer is still a big player in the healthcare industry, with its revenue totaling $62.6 billion last year. And although that was down slightly from the previous year, with the company making continued investments into its growth, I believe it's on the right path. It may take some time, but with the stock trading at just nine times future earnings (based on analyst forecasts), there's some excellent margin of safety here. Plus, Pfizer's stock also pays 6.8% in dividends.
Novo Nordisk is another healthcare company that's in a tough spot. It has some terrific GLP-1 drugs in Wegovy and Ozempic that regulators have already approved, and which are generating a ton of revenue for the business. But with rising competition, it's also facing some headwinds this year due to lower prices. The company's adjusted sales for the first three months of the year were down 4% (at constant exchange rates).
However, with its Wegovy pill in its early stages and showing strong demand out of the gate, there's reason to be optimistic that Novo Nordisk's growth may look much better in the future. And a higher-dose version of Wegovy has also been showing encouraging early signs that it may help people lose as much as 28% of their body weight. That kind of performance could help it wrestle away market share from rival Eli Lilly.
Novo Nordisk trades at less than 14 times its projected future earnings, as this also looks like a heavily discounted stock to own right now. It's trading around $45 and could prove to be an excellent growth stock to just buy and hold.
PDD Holdings stock is down 17% this year, and it now trades at around $95. PDD is the company behind the popular e-commerce site Temu, which consumers often flock to in search of bargains. Its products are mainly sourced from China, and tariffs and trade uncertainty have weighed on PDD's stock over the past year, which is now trading around its 52-week low.
Despite the adversity, however, the business has shown resilience. Sales for the last three months of 2025 were up by 12% to around $17.7 billion. What was a bit disappointing, however, was an 11% decline in net income. But if trade conditions improve between China and the U.S. and tariffs come down, that could strengthen PDD's numbers and growth prospects in the future.
Buying the stock now, while pessimism is high, could enable you to buy it at an incredibly low valuation -- it's currently trading at just eight times its projected future earnings.
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David Jagielski, CPA has positions in Novo Nordisk. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Eli Lilly and Pfizer. The Motley Fool recommends Novo Nordisk. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
Four leading AI models discuss this article
"The apparent bargains in Pfizer, Novo Nordisk, and PDD mask deeper structural headwinds that justify their depressed multiples."
The article presents Pfizer, Novo Nordisk, and PDD Holdings as undervalued opportunities trading below $100 with forward P/Es of 9x, 14x, and 8x respectively. Yet it glosses over Pfizer's ongoing revenue contraction from COVID products and uncertain pipeline replenishment, Novo Nordisk's pricing pressures and manufacturing constraints in the weight-loss market, and PDD's dependence on aggressive international expansion amid geopolitical tensions. These factors could lead to multiple compression rather than re-rating, especially if macroeconomic conditions worsen or regulatory hurdles intensify for pharma players.
However, the discounted prices provide a buffer against near-term disappointments, and successful execution on new assets like Pfizer's GLP-1 or Novo's higher-dose Wegovy could drive significant upside surprises.
"Low multiples reflect real structural headwinds, not market irrationality—conflating valuation with opportunity is how investors buy value traps."
This article conflates 'cheap' with 'undervalued'—a critical error. PFE trades at 9x forward earnings partly because terminal growth is genuinely uncertain post-patent cliff; the Metsera GLP-1 acquisition doesn't offset $20B+ in near-term revenue headwinds. NVO's 14x multiple reflects Ozempic/Wegovy competition intensifying (Eli Lilly's tirzepatide shows superior efficacy in head-to-heads); the oral Wegovy thesis is speculative. PDD at 8x looks cheap until you factor in tariff risk—a 25% tariff on Chinese goods could compress margins 300-500bps, making current earnings forecasts fiction. The article ignores that all three face binary catalysts (regulatory, competitive, geopolitical) that justify lower multiples, not margin-of-safety bargains.
If terminal growth rates are genuinely 4-6% (not 0%), and markets are pricing in worst-case scenarios, then 8-9x multiples do offer asymmetric upside—especially PFE's 6.8% dividend cushions downside.
"Low forward P/E ratios in these specific cases reflect market-priced terminal value decay rather than a genuine margin of safety."
Labeling these stocks as 'undervalued' based on forward P/E ratios is a dangerous oversimplification. Pfizer (PFE) is a classic value trap; its 6.8% yield is a red flag for a dividend cut if cash flows from legacy COVID products continue to erode faster than its pipeline can replenish them. PDD Holdings (PDD) faces existential regulatory risk regarding cross-border e-commerce tariffs that no P/E multiple can mitigate. Novo Nordisk (NVO) is the only high-quality compounder here, but it is priced for perfection in a GLP-1 market that is rapidly shifting from a supply-constrained environment to a price-competitive one. Investors are confusing cheap multiples with structural value.
If the market is currently overreacting to temporary geopolitical friction and patent cycles, these stocks represent a rare asymmetric opportunity to buy high-quality assets at a significant discount to their intrinsic long-term cash flow potential.
"Valuation alone cannot justify the thesis; looming patent cliffs, competitive pricing pressure, and regulatory risk could erode long term earnings and justify lower multiples."
While the premise that Pfizer (PFE), Novo Nordisk (NVO), and PDD (PDD) look cheap at under $100 is eye-catching, the article glosses over meaningful risks. Pfizer's near-term growth is fragile with patent cliffs and a pipeline that hinges on late-stage successes; a 9x forward multiple relies on aggressive earnings upside that may prove elusive. Novo Nordisk faces intensifying GLP-1 competition and pricing pressure, with Wegovy/Ozempic growth possibly peaking; a sub-14x multiple assumes persistently strong growth that is not guaranteed. PDD is exposed to China regulatory twists, tariff risk, and profitability questions despite Temu's top-line upside. In short: cheap does not equal safe, and catalysts are uncertain.
Strongest counter-argument: cheap stocks can stay cheap for a reason, and the headwinds may persist or intensify. Even if prices look cheap, uncertain earnings trajectories and regulatory/geopolitical risks could push fundamentals and multiples lower instead of higher.
"Lilly's faster share gains create the same multiple-compression risk for NVO that others noted for PFE and PDD."
Gemini flags NVO as the sole high-quality name yet underplays how Lilly's 2024 real-world data shows tirzepatide pulling 35-40% share in new GLP-1 starts, which directly pressures NVO's 2026-2027 revenue forecasts that justify even the current 14x. If pricing pressure arrives sooner than modeled, the multiple compression risk Claude highlighted for PFE and PDD applies equally here. No one quantified the combined GLP-1 duopoly effect on terminal growth assumptions.
"NVO's valuation risk isn't tirzepatide share loss per se—it's whether terminal growth assumptions survive market maturation even if NVO holds 50% of a larger pie."
Grok's tirzepatide market-share data is critical, but we're conflating two separate risks. NVO's 14x assumes *growth*, not just maintenance. If Lilly captures 35-40% of incremental starts, NVO's volume growth slows—but pricing power and Wegovy oral formulation could offset. The real question: does NVO's terminal growth assumption (likely 8-12% through 2030) hold at 14x if share stabilizes at 45-50%? Nobody's modeled that scenario. That's where multiple compression actually lives.
"PDD's valuation is irrelevant because the imminent closure of the de minimis loophole poses an existential threat to its international unit economics."
Claude and Grok are hyper-focusing on GLP-1 duopoly dynamics while ignoring the massive, distinct risk for PDD: the 'Temu' business model is fundamentally predicated on exploiting the de minimis loophole. If the US government closes this, PDD's unit economics collapse overnight, regardless of their P/E. We are debating pharma terminal growth while ignoring that PDD’s entire international revenue stream faces an existential regulatory binary event that makes their current earnings multiple essentially meaningless.
"Temu's tariff risk is real but not existential; the bigger threat is broad regulatory tightening that could cap PDD's cross-border margins and slow expansion, making 'cheap' multiples reflect policy risk as much as demand."
Gemini's assertion that Temu creates existential risk for PDD hinges on a binary tariff 'kill switch'—in reality, Temu's margins could compress, but unlikely to erase PDD's international growth overnight. The deeper, underappreciated risk is regulatory tightening across multiple jurisdictions that caps cross-border margin, slows expansion, and clouds profitability beyond today’s tariff scare. So the cheapness may reflect policy risk as much as demand—and warrants a careful, staged thesis on PDD.
The panel consensus is bearish on Pfizer (PFE), Novo Nordisk (NVO), and PDD (PDD), warning that their current valuations do not account for significant risks, including patent cliffs, pricing pressures, regulatory hurdles, and geopolitical tensions.
None identified
Pfizer's uncertain pipeline replenishment and Novo Nordisk's intensifying GLP-1 competition, as highlighted by Gemini and Claude.