Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

Growth Stocks

Growth stocks are the glamour investments on Wall Street.

With the dominant performance of mega-cap tech stocks, growth stocks are also the best-performing stocks in the market today, having dramatically outpaced value stocks for the last decade. Growth stocks aren’t all tech companies, they run the gamut from up-and-coming consumer brands or fast-expanding restaurants to the cutting edge of biotech and technology.

We highlight some of our favorite growth stocks in our FREE REPORT on the 5 Best Stocks to Buy every month.

Of course, there’s a caveat to investing in these stocks. Unlike time-tested dividend stocks or bargain-basement value plays, these stocks carry plenty of risk. The companies are less mature, have smaller margins, and typically don’t pay a dividend. Thus, the stocks can be very volatile, especially around earnings season.

For many investors, however, the risks of investing in these stocks are worth the potential rewards. Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), Netflix (NFLX)—all of them started off as growth stocks before they became some of the best-performing and most coveted stocks on the market. Those who got in early earned triple-digit, even quadruple-digit, returns.

There are several keys to finding the right growth stocks:

  • Invest in fast-growing companies. It’s a rather obvious prerequisite. But it’s important to know what fast-growing means. It means investing in fast-growing industries, where revolutionary ideas and services are being created. Any little-known stock that provides a product that is essential to that budding industry makes for a good growth stock.
  • Buy stocks that are outperforming the market. Companies can promise all kinds of financial growth. But is that growth potential translating to a rising share price? The best investing tips come from the performance of the stocks themselves.
  • Use only the best market timing indicators. Never underestimate the power of the market to move stocks. You don’t want to invest in a growth stock just as the market is plummeting. If you’re in a bull market, you can afford to be aggressive in buying stocks that are more speculative.
  • Be patient. Not every growth stock will make you rich overnight. Very few will, in fact. Even Apple took years before it morphed into the biggest technology behemoth in the world. In the investment world, time is your friend. If you get out of a stock too early, you may miss out on some big gains months down the road.

Growth stocks were the basis upon which Cabot Wealth Network was founded in 1970. Our founder, Carlton Lutts, gave up a career in engineering to pursue his passion for stock selection and market timing.

More than half a century later, we’re much more than a growth investing advisory. But growth stocks—and helping individual investors earn big profits from them—are still at the heart of what we do via our flagship advisory, Cabot Growth Investor.

Investing in these stocks can be tricky. Finding a hidden gem that has yet to be fully discovered by the market is simultaneously exciting and frustrating. Look for up-trending earnings growth, improving profit margins, and booming industries. If done right, investing in growth stocks can be both highly satisfying and highly profitable.

And we’re here to help!

Growth Stocks Post Archives
Last week, Apple presented the bad news that iPhone sales growth has been slowing, and the stock gapped down in response. AAPL is now 29% off last year’s high (hit in April), and more and more investors are wondering what they should do with Apple—buy, hold or sell.
Longtime readers will remember that Tesla Motors (TSLA) was one of the market’s top performers back in 2013, zooming to gains of 344% as the company’s Model S sedan earned rave reviews. But the stock has spent much of the past two years building a basing pattern, digesting that advance. And now more and more companies are building electric cars! So I thought I’d take some time today to review the competition, to see if Tesla, whose base model costs $75,000 and has a range of 240 miles, has anything to worry about on the competitive front.
My bet is that the biggest question on the minds of growth investors right now (except for the Great Apple Conundrum of what’s going to happen to AAPL) is the price of a barrel of crude oil. This is no small matter. Despite the welcome increase in solar and wind generation of electricity, most of us power our daily commutes with oil by-products.
Apple may be the most respected consumer electronics brand in the world. Its users are loyal. Its premium pricing means it’s a very profitable company, with after-tax profit margins of 21.6% in the latest quarter. But there are a couple of reasons why I think AAPL might not be the best investment.
Back in 2007, 72% of American owned stocks, either individual stocks, stock mutual funds or a 401(k) or an IRA. Today, about half of all Americans own stocks. (Depending on which poll you read, it’s either 55% who own stocks or 53% who don’t. Polls are twitchy things and need a lot of translating to tell a straight story.) But what that means is that about half of all Americans (give or take 5%) are stock owners.
M&A activity has already reached record heights in 2015. Those who invest in the companies being bought have made a hefty return. Here’s how to spot the next takeover candidate.
The return of Star Wars is a cash cow for a number of markets, and creating a class of “Star Wars stocks” that should pique the interest of growth investors.
Both Apple (AAPL) and Gilead Sciences (GILD) are making a ton of money and are using their cash flow to buy back stock and pay decent dividends. And all estimates and indications are that the companies will continue to make a boatload of money in 2016 and beyond. Thus, as companies, things look good for Apple and Gilead. The stocks, however, have acted ragged for months.
Remember the 3D printing stocks that were hot back in 2012 and 2013? 3D Systems (DDD) soared from 9 to 97, while Stratasys (SSYS) zoomed from 18 to 130. Some of the advance was certainly justified. Both companies had demonstrated their ability to grow earnings year after year, and in 2012 and 2013, both companies enjoyed many quarters when revenues boomed more than 50%. But look at the stocks today.
Getting to the market today—first we had the August 24 bottom, a month later we had the retest, and now we’ve got a rally that, while it’s not perfect, is certainly creating some winners. I think selective buying is okay. But what to buy? For my money, there are two methods of stock-picking that tend to work.
With the bottoms of August and September behind us—and fear rekindled among numerous investors—is it possible that the market will continue to motor higher from here, possibly all the way to year-end? Yes, it is possible. But more likely—in part because it’s getting late in the year—is that any advance will be led by some fairly narrow groups of stocks, possibly featuring two distinct categories of stocks.
The good news for growth investors is that we have a new buy signal. (But it doesn’t mean that markets are out of the woods.)
Recent weeks have brought an abnormally high number of days when the Dow gained or lost 200 or more points, as the overwhelming majority of stocks joined in the trend of the day. What do I think about this volatility, and what does it mean for the future?
How will the electric utilities—and the solar energy-producing homeowners—evolve to serve this fleet of electric cars? And ultimately—when will I be able to summon an autonomous car with my smartphone, tell it to take me to my destination, and exit the vehicle upon arrival, all without dealing with a human? The answers to these questions are still unknown, which means there’s a lot of opportunity in this market, and that’s one reason the readers of my Cabot Stock of the Month are still holding onto Tesla, with profits exceeding 750%.
This “focus on the simple” brings me to one of my favorite sayings in the stock market, which I got from the book, The Perfect Speculator (I highly recommend it): “It’s hardest to keep things simplest.”