The S&P 500 has notched record highs recently, pushed on by certain AI-related stocks. Yet underneath the surface, there are actually a lot of high-quality businesses whose share prices are struggling.

Naturally then, there will be lucrative long-term opportunities, regardless of the index’s loftiness. Here are two S&P 500 stocks that I think deserve closer attention.

Uber

Let’s start with Uber (NYSE:UBER), the world’s largest rideshare company. Shares have dipped 24% over 12 months as investors fret about Tesla and Waymo robotaxis.

To be fair, the risks could be real. Because if I can get a self-driving taxi from either, potentially at a lower price, then why bother with Uber? Robotaxis are reportedly becoming popular among women because they feel safer riding alone.

Thing is though, there are loads of players entering this industry: Wayve, WeRide, Pony.ai, Nuro, Motional, and more. So it seems likely to me that robotaxis eventually become commoditised.

Uber has partnered with all the firms mentioned above to offer customers access to robotaxis in major cities worldwide. It’s also partnered with Rivian to deploy up to 50,000 fully autonomous robotaxis by 2031.

The plan is clear: to be the place where people book robotaxis. My view is that a leading aggregator like Uber, with over 200m customers worldwide, is positioned to capture the majority of everyday consumer demand.

If so, the growth stock appears to offer tremendous value today, trading at just 16 times next year’s forecast earnings. In fact, it looks on sale to me.

Star hedge fund manager Bill Ackman certainly thinks so. He estimates that Uber’s earnings per share will grow at a compound annual rate of 25% over the next three-to-five years — roughly double the rate of the broader S&P 500.

Uber continues to demonstrate very strong operating and financial performance… valuation is increasingly disconnected from its fundamentals.

Pershing Square.

Intuitive Surgical

The second S&P 500 struggler is Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ:ISRG). It’s down 30% so far in 2026, putting the robotics stock on course for its worst year since 2008.

Similar to Uber, investors are worried about rising competition. In Intuitive’s case, it’s emerging rivals in the robotic-assisted surgical space, particularly Medtronic and Johnson & Johnson.

However, I think the company’s entrenched competitive position built over three decades makes it difficult for others to take meaningful market share. For starters, there are over 70,000 surgeons trained on its da Vinci surgical systems. So there’s naturally hesitation to switch to totally new machines.

In Q2, the firm’s installed base reached 11,710 systems. Beyond high recurring revenue from the regular replacement of instruments and accessories, this massive installed base produces huge amounts of surgical data which is used to fuel innovation.

Speaking of which, Intuitive’s state-of-the-art da Vinci 5 has raised the bar, with force-feedback technology and 10,000 times the computing power of previous versions. In Q2, the company placed 246 da Vinci 5 systems.

Admittedly, the stock isn’t cheap at 36 times forward earnings. If growth disappoints, there could still be valuation risk here. But this is a big discount to the stock’s 10-year average of 50 times forward earnings. And Intuitive remains the leader in a global surgical robot market that’s poised to keep growing for a long time.

These are just two shares where I see a lot of opportunity worth considering today.

Should you invest £5,000 in Uber Technologies right now?

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Ben McPoland owns shares of Intuitive Surgical and Uber.