2026’s early innings have been a choppy affair, in no small part thanks to many of the same drivers that caused volatility at times last year.
Concerns about economic growth, new tariff policy, even another (briefer) government shutdown and more have all conspired to keep stocks rangebound so far. But there have been new wrinkles, too, including holes in the artificial intelligence (AI) story and severe weakness in parts of the historically growthy software industry.
The good news, if any, is that some growth names have been thrown out with the bathwater. And because they’re less frothy than before, they’ve become even more attractive from a valuation standpoint.
But we probably won’t have much luck if we blindly tether our hopes to traditional growth narratives. That’s why today, we’re going to look at some of Wall Street’s favorite growth stocks for 2026—companies that analysts, as a group, overwhelmingly believe have what it takes to improve their top and bottom lines and propel their stocks ahead.
Editor’s Note: Tabular data shown in this article are up-to-date as of Feb. 4, 2026.
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Disclaimer: This article does not constitute individualized investment advice. Individual securities, funds, and/or other investments appear for your consideration and not as personalized investment recommendations. Act at your own discretion.
Table of Contents
What Is a Growth Stock?
A growth stock is generally viewed as a company that is improving sales and profits with each passing year—typically at a faster clip than the industry average. This should, in theory, result in faster stock price appreciation as other shareholders get wise to this success and decide to buy in themselves.
Growth stocks tend to be viewed in opposition to value stocks, which might not grow as fast but have substantial underlying operations that the market is underappreciating (for now).
So, what metrics do we want to look at?
Growth stocks tend to boast rapid sales. Income matters, too—though it’s more important among more established companies, as smaller growth stocks often burn all their cash on expansion. Expectations matter, too, because if rapid growth still falls short of Street estimates, these supposedly highflying companies might still see their stocks slump.
Similarly, we have to consider the competition. For instance, if an AI company is growing at a 40% rate, that might sound great, but if similar companies are growing at a 50%-plus clip, that AI company could be viewed as a laggard.
In other words: Not all growth stocks are good investments, even if they’re growing … heck, even if they’re growing quickly! That means we have to look past the surface to really find the best growth stocks to buy.
The Best Growth Stocks to Buy Now
The top growth stocks right now are companies expanding faster than the broader market, as well as their peers. That often involves riding a long-term trend that will result in a durable tailwind for years to come.
Nothing is certain on Wall Street, of course, and growth stocks that showed strong revenue trends or stock price appreciation over the past year might still stumble if things change in the months to come. That said, investors who pay attention to growth stock data can often identify companies moving into favor—and share in their success.
Today, I’ll look at some of the best growth stocks for 2026 based on recent performance, financial metrics, and equity analysts’ ratings and growth projections. I’ll include both long-term earnings-growth estimates and consensus analyst ratings, courtesy of S&P Global Market Intelligence. The consensus rating is the average of all known analyst ratings of the stock, boiled down to a numerical system where …
1-1.5 = Strong Buy
1.5-2.5 = Buy
2.5-3.5 = Hold
3.5-4.5 = Sell
4.5-5 = Strong Sell
In short, the lower the number, the better the overall consensus view on the stock.
All stocks here are rated at least 2.0 or below, meaning at worst they’re solidly in the Buy camp, though most of the picks are considered Strong Buys as we enter 2026.
7. Capital One Financial
— Sector: Financials
— Market cap: $140.2 billion
— Long-term earnings growth estimate: 14%
— Consensus analyst rating: 1.65 (Buy)
Capital One Financial (COF)—the entity responsible for “What’s in your wallet?” being etched into our collective consciences—is a financial hybrid whose operations include consumer banking, commercial banking, and credit cards.
How is COF a hybrid? Well, credit cards typically work in what’s called the “four corners model.” In this model, 1.) financial institutions like JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Citigroup (C) are responsible for a cardholder’s account, while 2.) payment processors like Visa (V) or Mastercard (MA) are technological middlemen that help facilitate transactions between 3.) cardholders and 4.) merchants. Capital One is one of those financial institutions, and for many years, it had issued both Visa and Mastercard cards and been a part of the “four corners model.”
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But that’s not the only model. A handful of companies, American Express (AXP) chief among them, operate in a “three corners model” where one company is responsible for both financial accounts and the payment network. And in May 2025, Capital One officially joined that crowd with the closing of its purchase of three-corners operator Discover Financial.
“We acknowledge that substantial investment may be necessary to position the Discover network as a viable alternative to Visa and Mastercard in the credit card space and hence we view the credit portfolio conversion as more of a long-term aspiration (5-10 years) rather than an immediate strategic priority,” says Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, who rate COF at Outperform (equivalent of Buy). “Nonetheless, our scenario analysis suggests that if successfully executed, this investment could yield highly attractive returns, making it a compelling avenue for COF to pursue over time.”
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But some analysts believe the COF payoff is coming sooner rather than later.
“Capital One is our Top Pick,” says Morgan Stanley analyst Jeffrey Adelson (Buy). He cites numerous catalysts ,including a “significant ramp in buybacks, ongoing realization of synergies from the Discover transaction, [and] ongoing credit improvement tailwinds.”
Another potential spark came in January, when Capital One announced the $5.2 billion acquisition of business payments platform Brex. “Brex offers strategic benefits such as their best-in-class business payments platform, modern and scalable tech stack, and providing access to major tech and growth companies,” says Jefferies analyst John Hecht (Buy), who also dubs COF a “Franchise Pick.” “Additionally, Brex oversees ~$13B in commercial deposits which could provide upside on funding costs and [net interest margin].”
All in all, COF enjoys 17 Buy ratings versus six Holds and no Sells, making it one of the best growth stocks to buy for 2026 and potentially beyond.
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6. Micron
— Sector: Technology
— Market cap: $414.5 billion
— Long-term earnings growth estimate: 51%
— Consensus analyst rating: 1.56 (Buy)
Micron Technology (MU) specializes in memory and storage products, such as dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), NAND flash memory, and solid-state drives (SSDs). It serves a wide variety of markets, including PCs, graphics, networking, automotive, industrial, and consumer. Perhaps its most important right now is data centers, where AI-driven demand has helped to reinvigorate prices for NAND and DRAM broadly.
However, that’s just one factor helping to prop up Micron’s bull thesis, says Argus analyst Jim Kelleher (Buy).
“Favorable industry supply-demand balance and normalization of inventories are also positive for DRAM prices over the long term,” he says. “Margins are benefiting from volume leverage, the lagged effects of prior production cuts, and right sizing of distributor and OEM inventories. In consumer-device end markets, inventories have normalized and are also at normal levels in enterprise data center and IT markets.”
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In January, Micron announced that it would buy a semiconductor wafer fabrication site from Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing for $1.8 billion.
“The acquisition of PSMC fab/site in Taiwan provides a structural outlet for more sustained supply growth from [roughly] 18 months onward,” says Stifel analyst Brian Chin (Buy). “It makes strategic sense for Micron to invest further in Taiwan, as it would be increasingly difficult for Micron to keep pace with peers in [2027] reliant mostly on its initial Boise fab.”
MU lost a few Buy calls in the second half of 2025 amid a run-up in shares, but the bull camp has been filling back up. Currently, Micron stock enjoys 38 Buy calls versus just three Holds and two Sells. Among the more recent converts is Morgan Stanley, whose analysts noted valuation issues but still upgraded MU shares to Overweight in November.
“Micron is pushing the envelope on valuation as the group rallies, but we believe we are looking at multiple quarters of double digit price increases which can lead to substantially higher earnings power—and resolve any lingering questions on specialty high bandwidth memory for AI,” they say.
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5. Astrana Health
— Sector: Health care
— Market cap: $1.1 billion
— Long-term earnings growth estimate: 34%
— Consensus analyst rating: 1.45 (Strong Buy)
Astrana Health (ASTH) is a health care management service organization (MSO) that helps coordinate care among private and public insurance, more than 20,000 physician providers, and 1.6 million patients. The business focuses on converting physician groups from traditional fee-based care to “value-based care” (VBC). Within VBC, a variety of health care providers (doctors, hospitals, laboratories, etc.) coordinate to manage a person’s health, and are incentivized for providing high quality and efficient cost of care.
The emerging VBC field has been a font of growth. Astrana has been emblematic of the business opportunity, with revenues rocketing higher by 260% between 2019 and 2024. 2025 is expected to finish with an additional 55% top-line growth.
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Shares have been a different story. ASTH is effectively breakeven over the past five years, and it has gotten there in extremely choppy fashion. For instance, it fell off a cliff during the final few months of 2024 when Astrana announced it was purchasing Prospect Health—an integrated care delivery system that includes a licensed health care service plan, primary care and specialist groups, a pharmacy asset, a hospital, and another MSO—for $745 million in a deal that admittedly ballooned Astrana’s debt.
The stock limped into 2026 with double-digit stock losses, in part spurred by timing issues on risk-based contracts that forced Astrana to lower its 2025 outlook. Then it suffered another massive drop in January 2026 following the 2027 Advance Notice for Medicare Advantage (MA), which proposed MA rates just 0.09% higher than in 2026, whereas investors were expecting closer to 5%.
And yet.
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“We are surprised to see the level of pressure on Astrana Health shares today,” say William Blair analysts, who maintained the stock at Outperform. They cited a larger dropoff than more pure-play Medicare Advantage operators, less exposure to certain MA headwinds, and the potential for the proposed changes to drive people toward Astrana Health’s business. “Given today’s selloff, shares now trade at only 0.4x estimated 2027 sales and about 6x on an EV/2027 adjusted EBITDA basis, which we view as an attractive entry point for a highly profitable company with a strong operating model and deep and experienced leadership team.”
William Blair is far from alone. Astrana Health doesn’t have a huge analyst following, but of the 11 that cover the stock, nine call it a Buy, and the remaining two are merely on the sidelines at Hold. Collectively, they see company delivering spectacular long-term earnings growth of 34% annually, which is in the same realm as many of the other best growth stocks for 2026.
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4. Insulet
— Sector: Health care
— Market cap: $17.6 billion
— Long-term earnings growth estimate: 27%
— Consensus analyst rating: 1.42 (Strong Buy)
Insulet (PODD) is a medical device company that’s responsible for the Omnipod line of insulin pump products.
Its most recent version of the device is the Omnipod 5—a wearable automated insulin delivery (AID) system that includes a fully integrated smartphone app. It’s also compatible with DexCom’s (DXCM) G7 and G6 continuous glucose monitor (CGM) systems, as well as the FreeStyle Libre 2 Plus Sensors. Insulet also produces the Omnipod DASH, which isn’t automated, but instead delivers insulin based on the user’s programmed basal rates and requires manual bolusing for meals and corrections.
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Insulet is one of a large number of health care companies vying to treat the world’s hundreds of millions of diabetics, but Wall Street is overwhelmingly optimistic about its ability to differentiate. At the moment, 24 analysts call the stock a Buy, versus just one Hold and one Sell—a bull camp that has only strengthened in the midst of a three-month, 25% cooling-off in PODD shares.
“The stock has been under pressure since the Analyst Day. We believe investors are concerned about the amount of spend needed to drive the T2 opportunity, future competition from semi-durable patch players, and weakening script data of late,” say Stifel analysts, who rate the stock at Buy. “We are confident that Insulet can allocate dollars to its [direct-to-consumer] initiative and drive the T2 opportunity, while still delivering on the margin expansion needed to hit its [long-range planning] commitments. … SG&A ex-advertising spend is delivering solid leverage of late, and we believe this can be augmented by ongoing gross margin expansion.”
Not only does PODD’s near-term ramp potential make it one of the best growth stocks to buy for 2026, but Wall Street also expects robust bottom-line expansion over the next five years, with consensus estimates for 27% annual profit growth.
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3. Nvidia
— Sector: Technology
— Market cap: $4.2 trillion
— Long-term earnings growth estimate: 38%
— Consensus analyst rating: 1.35 (Strong Buy)
Nvidia (NVDA) isn’t just the world’s largest tech stock by market capitalization, but the largest stock period, thanks to its dominance in semiconductors that are used in cutting-edge technologies. Applications for this firm’s hardware include self-driving cars, cryptocurrency mining, and other in-demand and growth-oriented areas of the 21st century economy.
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But No. 1 with a bullet is the artificial intelligence market, and at least for now, Nvidia is king of that market.
“Nvidia has changed the tech and global landscape as its GPUs have become the new oil and gold in the IT landscape, with its chips powering the AI Revolution and being the only game in town for now,” says a team of Wedbush analysts led by Dan Ives.
This specialization has resulted in red-hot growth at Nvidia—a fire that’s only expected to continue burning. Analysts see revenue growth averaging 55% annually over the next two years, and long-term earnings growth at a clip of 38%.
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“We view NVDA as *the* AI company: a sustainable leader in massive parallel and heterogeneous compute chips, software, and recently services, to enable AI and related applications,” says Truist’s William Stein (Buy). “We see NVDA’s leadership as driven less by the raw performance of its chips, and more by its culture of innovation, ecosystem of incumbency, and massive investment in software, AI models, and services, that we believe makes its chips a default choice for most engineers building AI systems.
“We expect NVDA’s superior positioning in gaming, server acceleration/AI and, eventually, autonomous driving, will lead to ongoing structural fundamental growth and stock outperformance.”
NVDA has the largest bull camp, by total analysts, in our list of 2026’s best growth stocks: a whopping 59 Buys. That compares to just three Holds and a lonely Sell.
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2. Smurfit Westrock
— Sector: Consumer discretionary
— Market cap: $23.0 billion
— Long-term earnings growth estimate: 33%
— Consensus analyst rating: 1.33 (Strong Buy)
The best growth stock to buy for 2026 isn’t a tech stock … heck, it isn’t even a household name. But you almost certainly come across its products (albeit unknowingly) on a regular basis.
Smurfit Westrock (SW)—the product of a 2024 merger of Ireland’s Smurfit Kappa and America’s Westrock—is a global manufacturer of consumer packaging, corrugated packaging, and a variety of paper products. And by virtue of that merger, the combined entity is now one of the largest packaging providers in the world, with operations in 40 countries.
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Consider Smurfit Westrock an interesting beneficiary of technological trends—specifically, the continued rise of e-commerce. As people increasingly move away from buying in brick-and-mortar stores and toward online shopping … well, those products have to get shipped in something, and that’s precisely where Smurfit comes in.
“[We estimate] that the industry will remain strong, and we see modest expansion at a compound annual growth rate of 3%-4% through 2028,” writes Argus Research analyst Alexandra Yates, who rates SW shares at Buy. “We favor companies with pulp, paperboard packaging, and corrugated product lines, and expect this segment to show continued long-term growth through 2030.”
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Of course, Smurfit is expected to grow at a much healthier clip, with analyst expectations for long-term annual earnings growth of more than 30%.
“We see long-term upside potential and expect earnings growth congruent with growth in e-commerce and growth in demand for sustainable paper and packaging goods,” Yates adds. “We think that current valuation multiples are attractive given the company’s recovering earnings outlook through FY26.”
SW has picked up quite a few covering analysts of late, and they’re unanimously bullish, with all 15 calling the stock a Buy. Truist’s Michael Roxland is also among those Buys, citing numerous drivers, including an “improving containerboard cycle, which we believe is entering a ‘golden age’ driven by balanced supply and demand.”
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1. Take-Two Interactive Software
— Sector: Communication services
— Market cap: $36.7 billion
— Long-term earnings growth estimate: 44%
— Consensus analyst rating: 1.28 (Strong Buy)
Take-Two Interactive Software (TTWO) is a juggernaut in the video game space, responsible for developing, publishing, and marketing a variety of titles, often under subsidiary labels including Rockstar Games and 2K. Among its various games are the WWE, PGA, and NBA 2K series, Civilization, Red Dead Redemption, a host of mobile games (including Words With Friends and FarmVille), and most notably, the Grand Theft Auto series.
Anyone who follows video games even casually will have a laugh over a Jefferies analyst report titled “Well It’s Groundhog Day… Again.”
“Strong results from NBA 2K and mobile drove an even larger beat than expected, but the headline from F2Q results is undoubtedly the further delay of GTA VI to Nov. 19, 2026,” says analyst James Heaney, who rates the stock at Buy.
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GTA VI is a long-awaited title that’s all but certain to be a blockbuster, but it also has become something of a running joke. Its launch will now come roughly 13 years after the release of its predecessor, GTA V. That’s longer than the gap between the launch of Grand Theft Auto’s third and fifth editions! GTA V originally launched on the PlayStation 3; it has since been relaunched on PS4 and PS5 to give GTA fans something, anything to do in the interim.
Regardless, Wall Street largely expects GTA VI to be a success, and that’s reflected in extremely bullish ratings: 26 Buys, one Hold, and one Sell as of this writing.
“The company has several levers to pull to drive profits well above our estimates, including the higher price point for GTA VI, the integration of the game into GTA Online, and significant margin expansion from its first-party web store,” says Wedbush’s Alicia Reese (Outperform). But she does highlight a potential risk to watch for when TTWO finally releases its long-awaited title: “Take-Two must get this game right; large bugs or imperfections could cause a dip in initial sales and long-term ill will (as seen with Cyberpunk 2077).”
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Should I Buy Growth Stocks or a Growth Exchange-Traded Fund?
Growth-oriented investing strategies are always in-demand, so there are a host of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) out there that own growth stocks. The largest, the Vanguard Growth ETF (VUG), commands more than $200 billion in assets as proof of the popularity of this approach.
ETFs allow for easy diversification as you invest tactically in growth stocks. But keep in mind that by spreading your money around and reducing your risk, you also limit your upside. Many growth investors are enamored with the idea of a stock that doubles in short order—and that’s almost impossible with an ETF that holds hundreds of different components.
In short: Whether you buy growth stocks or an ETF depends on your personal risk tolerance.
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One way to put that low-cost diversification to work? Collecting dividends. But trying to choose from literally hundreds of income-producing funds could take up a lot more time than you have. So let us help you narrow the field—check out our list of 10 top dividend ETFs.
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What’s better than a smart, sound dividend income strategy? How about a smart, sound dividend income strategy with very little money coming out of your pocket?
If that sounds good to you, you need look no farther than low-cost pioneer Vanguard, which offers up a number of payout-oriented products. Find out what you need to know in our list of seven top-notch Vanguard dividend funds.
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