Micah Zimmerman, The Motley Fool
5 min read
When the market gets jittery, the reflex is to hide in cash and wait it out. I’m tempted to do this. Money is tight, and I often let fear determine what I’m buying and where. But the smarter question I should be asking is which businesses keep ringing the register no matter what the economy or the S&P 500 does on a given Tuesday.
The three companies below share one trait: Their customers show up whether stocks are climbing or sliding. None of them is that popular, but each is expanding while everyone else stares at the news.
Missed Nvidia in 2009? This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again. In 2009, a “Double Down” signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same “Total Conviction” signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue »
A lender that gets busier when money gets tight
EZCORP (NASDAQ: EZPW) runs pawn shops, a corner of finance most investors overlook. The model is simple: A customer hands over a watch, a guitar, or a piece of jewelry and walks out with a short-term loan. Here’s why that matters in a downturn. When household budgets tighten and a bank loan isn’t an option, more people turn to a pawn shop for quick cash. It’s one of the rare businesses where a weaker economy can actually mean stronger demand.
What I find more interesting than the loan book is how aggressively the company is widening its reach. Early in 2026, the company took control of Founders One, a 105-store chain operating across a dozen countries, pushing its footprint to roughly 1,500 stores in 16 countries. It also rolled out an online car title loan platform in Texas, extending the same need-cash-now service to vehicle owners.
Look at the chart, too. This ticker has climbed roughly 150% over the past year, and a big chunk of that run is tied to gold. With prices touching record highs north of $5,000 an ounce earlier in 2026, the jewelry customers pawn or sell is worth far more, and the metal that the company melts down and resells as scrap carries a much fatter margin. Management has said as much: Its scrap margin jumped from about 22% to 38% year over year, and the company has flagged that those margins should normalize if gold simply stops climbing.
In plain terms, a stock this strong has been riding a tailwind that may not last, so a buyer today is partly betting on where gold goes next, not just on how many pawn loans get written. That’s a different risk than the steady, recession-proof story the headline suggests.
