It’s been a tremendous year for growth stocks. New technologies and increasing consumer adoption in fields such a semiconductors, electric vehicles, and generative AI have led to tremendous gains for growth stocks. In addition, mega-cap tech companies continue to report solid earnings and attract tons of investor capital.
While growth stocks have been sizzling hot, they cooled off a bit in April. Concerns about higher inflation and a potential twist in Federal Reserve interest rate policy seemingly led to some profit taking in growth stocks.
Does that make it too late to ride the growth stock wave? Not at all. However, investors should be prudent and select growth stocks which have strong risk/reward ratios. These are seven of the best growth stocks to buy today that are still at compelling valuations and should have plenty of upside ahead in coming months.
Many people love the idea of investing in toll road-style assets. These sorts of infrastructure businesses get to charge a set use fee to every passenger, making for an amazing business.
What’s unique about VeriSign (NASDAQ:VRSN) is that it effectively serves as a toll road for the internet. That’s because it serves as a key domain registry, operating as a vital backbone for the global internet network.
VeriSign has the exclusive license to operate all of the .dom and .net website domains worldwide. VeriSign charges approximately $9.75 per year for each registry, and its contract allows it to raise prices about 8.5% per year on average.
Given that VeriSign has operated these domains since the 1990s and has a contract that can likely be renewed in perpetuity, this makes for a tremendous long-term asset. VeriSign shares have plunged over the past year amid weakness in online spending and the Chinese market in particular.
That makes a compelling longer-term buying opportunity. This is especially true since VeriSign uses its cash flows to aggressively repurchase its own stock. With the share price currently being depressed, the buyback program will generate a higher rate of return for investors going forward.
Endava (DAVA)
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Endava (NYSE:DAVA) is an information technology outsourcing company. Specifically, its business model is to hire highly qualified IT professionals in lower cost-of-living countries, such as Poland, Colombia, and India; it utilizes those workers to carry out IT services for major multinational companies.
The business model has proven highly successful both for Endava and rivals such as EPAM Systems (NYSE:EPAM) over the years.
However, Endava’s customer base is skewed towards the payments, financial services, and banking sectors. With those categories being in a downturn recently, client spending has slowed down. This deceleration led to an abrupt 40% decline in DAVA’s stock price following its latest earnings report.
This plunge appears to be grossly overdone. Management has said that clients are merely deferring spending for a couple of quarters rather than abandoning future expansion plans. Endava also just made a large acquisition to expand its position in the healthcare vertical.
These factors should power revenues over the next year. In addition, Endava appears to be a winner from generative AI, as Endava can help large and sometimes stodgy companies to implement cutting-edge technology solutions into their existing workflows.
Keysight Technologies (KEYS)
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Keysight Technologies (NYSE:KEYS) provides product testing, quality assurance and design solutions to technology companies.
The company started operations as part of Hewlett-Packard’s (NYSE:HP) Test & Measurement division more than half a century ago. Keysight ultimately became its own publicly traded company in 2014 following a spin-off.
Keysight shares initially ramped up from around $30 at the time of the spin-off to a peak of more than $200. The company enjoyed a strong operating environment as an independent company that could pursue fresh growth opportunities. In addition, key clients such as telecom and mobile communications firms were spending heavily to deploy 5G solutions; Keysight is a leading provider of testing and quality assurance for 5G networks.
Since the peak, however, KEYS stock has pulled back about 25%. Spending in the 5G arena has dramatically slowed. Other Keysight markets such as RFID units and edge computing have also tapered off a bit.
However, several of these fields appear to be reaching a positive inflection point. In addition, Keysight offers testing solutions for fields such as semiconductors and AI functionality which should be robust growth markets going forward. All this sets Keysight up to be an excellent buy during this current downturn.
Charles River Laboratories (CRL)
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Charles River Laboratories (NYSE:CRL) has built a unique business. The Boston-based life sciences firm was founded in 1947 to provides the lab specimens — such as mice, rats and monkeys — for clinical trials on pharmaceutical drugs.
While Charles River got its start with lab animals, the firm is far larger and more diversified today. Now, it also offers software and services, trial design, and outsourced clinical research organization functionality, among other items.
In effect, Charles River collects a small tax on nearly the entirety of the biotech and pharmaceutical research space; incredibly, Charles River was involved in the development of an astounding 80% of all drugs which received FDA approval over the past few years. That’s a pretty strong competitive moat.
Charles River enjoyed an unusual burst of revenue tied to COVID-19 vaccine research and lab testing. Investors bid CRL stock up to the stratosphere on this large but temporary revenue stream.
As COVID-19 revenues rolled off, CRL stock crashed with it. However, with the stock down more than 50% off its highs, this has been a gross overreaction.
The company has posted a double-digit compounded annualized earnings growth rate for decades now. And management forecasts a return to double-digit growth as industry conditions clear up. Make no mistake, with the world’s aging demographics, there will be a global surge in biotech spending, and Charles River will reap the rewards.
Texas Instruments (TXN)
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Texas Instruments (NASDAQ:TXN) is the world’s largest analog semiconductor company by market share.
Analog chips are vital because they allow devices to translate real-world information, such as weather conditions, into data that devices can recognize. Analog chips are a huge piece of the Internet of Things theme, as all sorts of appliances and devices can now connect to the Internet and be controlled remotely.
Texas Instruments has 10,000s of thousands of stock-keeping units (SKUs) with a vast array of offerings that touch almost all modern industries. That said, the company has leaned into several major growth avenues such as smart cars. The computing intensity of vehicles is skyrocketing as automakers make vehicles increasingly sophisticated and feature-rich. The rise of electric vehicles, self-driving operations, and other such next-generation automobile technology will further enlarge Texas Instruments’ opportunity.
TXN shares have underperformed other semiconductor and growth stocks in recent quarters. That likely comes because the automobile and other core industrial markets have been relatively weak. Texas Instruments also has less exposure to fields like AI that have captured investors’ imaginations recently.
However, Texas Instrument’s long track record of growing cash flows, huge share repurchases, and a generous dividend all stack up to make this a blue-chip growth stock that investors can count on for the long-term.
Intel (INTC)
Intel (INTC) - Quantum Computing Stocks to Buy
Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) is another quality semiconductor company that is currently on sale.
To be sure, Intel has its critics. Intel has struggled to keep up with rivals such as Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) in key markets. It has also not been at the forefront of the all-important artificial intelligence chip trend, letting Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) grab a huge leadership position.
Intel’s recent earnings have been quite poor as the company is struggling with weak CPU demand and falling profit margins. However, the company has a secret weapon — its long-term investment program.
Intel is pouring tens of billions of dollars into new semiconductor foundry capacity. The idea here being that Intel can develop a large manufacturing unit for producing other companies’ semiconductor chips. With Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE:TSM) facing political risk and the Biden Administration investing heavily in domestic chip manufacturing capacity, this is a golden opportunity for Intel.
The firm is undoubtedly in a cyclical downturn right now. But the long-term strategy makes sense. And CEO Pat Gelsinger has been buying Intel shares recently on the open market, suggesting that there is considerable value to be had at current prices.
Corporacion America Airports (CAAP)
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Corporacion America Airports (NYSE:CAAP) is one of the world’s largest private airport operators; it controls 52 airports in total serving more than 81 million passengers annually. Its key market is Argentina, where it controls the various Buenos Aires airports – Argentina generates around half of revenues and EBITDA in a given year. The balance of the firm’s airports are in Brazil, Italy, Ecuador, Armenia, and Uruguay respectively.
Corporacion America Airports had a near-death experience during the pandemic, with shares dropping from a prior high of $17 to just $2 per share at one point. But the company slashed costs and was able to obtain government aid to make it through the pandemic.
As a result, while passenger traffic is only slightly above pre-pandemic levels, total profitability is multiples higher.
And the growth is bound to continue. The election of libertarian firebrand Javier Milei to Argentina’s presidency seems likely to rein in that country’s inflation problem and unleash a new era of economic prosperity in Argentina. Making matters even better, Mr. Milei happened to be Corporacion America’s chief economist prior to becoming president, ensuring he will give private sector infrastructure companies a fair shake during his presidency.
CAAP stock has rallied 50% over the past year on the more favorable travel environment and improving political conditions in Argentina. Even so, shares still go for just 11 times forward earnings and an estimated seven times estimated 2025 earnings. That’s a deep bargain for this growth stock.
On the date of publication, Ian Bezek held a long position in DAVA, KEYS, VRSN, CRL, TXN, INTC, CAAP and EPAM stock. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
Ian Bezek has written more than 1,000 articles for InvestorPlace.com and Seeking Alpha. He also worked as a Junior Analyst for Kerrisdale Capital, a $300 million New York City-based hedge fund. You can reach him on Twitter at @irbezek.
