7 Best Growth Stocks You Can Buy Right Now

Despite a lot of turbulence, 2026 has turned into the boom year for growth equities that investors were hoping for and that Wall Street expected.

Stocks as a whole were weighed down earlier this year by concerns about economic growth, new tariff policy, and even another (briefer) government shutdown … and that was before America’s war with Iran threw even more uncertainty into the picture. Even the growth haven of tech struggled thanks to concerns that artificial intelligence (AI) will cut deeply into the software and other industries.

Wall Street’s pros remained unflinchingly optimistic about many names, believing the selloffs were less omen and more opportunity. Right now, it looks like they were right. A little froth off the top made these growth stocks more attractive from a valuation standpoint, and they’ve spent the past couple months rallying from the bottom.

The question now is: Which stocks still have gas left in the tank?

Let’s explore some of the Wall Street analyst community’s top growth stocks right now. These are companies that “the pros” believe will rapidly grow their top and bottom lines in the years to come—and whose stocks they expect will be propelled higher as a result.

Editor’s Note: Tabular data shown in this article are up-to-date as of July 22, 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.

What Is a Growth Stock?

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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

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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 to buy right now 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.

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7. Datadog

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• Sector: Technology
• Market capitalization: $87.4 billion
• Dividend yield: N/A
• Consensus analyst rating: 1.49 (Strong Buy)

The best tech stocks to buy unsurprisingly feature prominently in our list of the best growth stocks. And that starts with Datadog (DDOG).

Cybersecurity has been a growing theme for decades, lifting the fortunes of companies that specialize in it and prompting some larger tech conglomerates to add security capabilities to their repertoire. Datadog counts among the former.

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This cybersecurity firm operates an observability and security platform for cloud applications that is used by thousands of customers. Among its products and solutions are infrastructure and application performance monitoring, log management, digital experience monitoring, data observability, network monitoring, error tracking, and more.

The company’s revenues have been growing like a weed for years—the top line tripled between its last full year as a private company (2018) and its first full year as a publicly traded company (2020), then more than quintupled between 2020 and 2024. Datadog also delivered its first full-year profit on a GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) basis in 2023, then reported a 280% jump in earnings in 2024. Profits pulled back considerably in 2025 but are expected to rebound over the next two years.

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Wall Street generally loves what it sees going forward, too. DDOG’s bull camp is jam-packed at 42 Buys, against three Holds and two Sells. However, the stock’s run-up is starting to come up against analyst price targets; the consensus target of $265.53 is just 8% higher than current levels. 

Datadog, like many cybersecurity stocks, was down heavily in 2026 on worries about the capabilities for Anthropic and other AI tools to disrupt the industry’s business models. But DDOG and the industry have rebounded violently since, analyst optimism largely remains in place as customers have been increasingly demanding AI as part of the tech stack. “We think that AI could improve efficiency in specific workflows, particularly code scanning, but does not now have the visibility, control, or reliability to replace end-to-end security platforms,” BofA analysts (Buy) write.

“We believe Datadog can leverage net new customer acquisitions, grow its wallet share among existing users, and drive increased penetration among international markets to sustain a healthy double-digit top-line growth profile and demonstrate improving profitability in the coming years,” say Stifel’s Brad Reback and Robert Galvin, who also rate shares at Buy.

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6. Neurocrine Biosciences

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• Sector: Healthcare
• Market cap: $17.4 billion
• Long-term earnings growth estimate: 48%
• Consensus analyst rating: 1.43 (Strong Buy)

Any list of the best growth stocks is bound to include the occasional pharmaceutical or biotechnology name. And that’s the case here, with Neurocrine Biosciences (NBIX) earnings a spot among Wall Street’s most favored investments.

Neurocrine discovers and develops treatments for neurological, neuroendocrine, and neuropsychiatric disorders. Its commercial products include Ingrezza (tardive dyskinesia and chorea associated with Huntington’s disease), Alkindi (adrenal insufficiency), Orilissa (endometriosis), and Efmody and Crenessity (classic congenital adrenal hyperplasia, or CAH). The last drug there is a relative newbie to the lineup, earning FDA approval in late 2024. But it is fast becoming a major contributor to Neurocrine’s top line, and it helped the company beat expectations in its most recent earnings report.

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“NBIX reported [first-quarter] total revenue of $815 million, which comfortably beat versus the consensus $764 million,” Wedbush analysts Laura Chico and Thomas Yip (Outperform) said following the company’s most recent earnings report. “The beat was driven by stronger-than-expected Ingrezza and Crenessity revenue. … Crenessity [first-quarter] end-user revenue $153 million beat vs. consensus $133 million.”

“Our conviction in NBIX strengthens following impressive 1Q26 results with both Ingrezza and Crenessity outperforming expectations while key pipeline progress remains underappreciated, in our view,” Oppenheimer analysts (Outperform) say, adding that they remain bullish on the company’s proposed acquisition of Soleno Therapeutics (SLNO), announced in April.

The broader analyst community is plenty rosy on Neurocrine Biosciences shares—currently, 24 pros rate shares a Buy, versus four Holds and zero Sells, and they see the company growing its bottom line by nearly 50% annually on average over the next three to five years.

The current consensus price target of $202 per share implies that NBIX has another 17% in upside over the next 12 months.

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5. Micron

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• Sector: Technology
• Market cap: $1.1 trillion
• Long-term earnings growth estimate: 171%
• Consensus analyst rating: 1.42 (Strong 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.

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“In the age of AI, no company other than Nvidia has blown away consensus expectations as measurably as Micron has done with its quarterly results and guidance across FY26,” says Argus analyst Jim Kelleher (Buy). “Growth is being driven by surging prices and AI demand for high bandwidth memory (HBM), along with soaring DRAM volumes, favorable mix, and improved NAND demand.”

UBS analysts made a stir in late May with a wild price-target upgrade on MU stock that implied Micron’s shares could more than double within the next year or so.

“Our supply chain work on ‘Long Term Agreements (LTAs) across the memory industry’ [another UBS report] suggests that up to 30% of DDR volumes industry-wide will be soon locked in at pricing that is just slightly below current levels, and these agreements will allow MU to trade some near-term revenue for demand visibility and a smoother earnings profile,” UBS analyst Tim Arcuri (Buy) wrote in a research note. 

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He added that because investors typically reward stocks for their durability and visibility, Micron’s ability to keep earnings above $100 per share would represent the “lasting, structural change that should support a shift toward a broader semi multiple.”

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 40 Buy calls versus just five Holds and no Sells. Meanwhile, their expectations for the bottom line are sky-high, with the consensus looking for more than 170% annual earnings expansion over the next five years.

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4. Smurfit Westrock

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• Sector: Consumer discretionary
• Market cap: $23.3 billion
• Long-term earnings growth estimate: 25%
• Consensus analyst rating: 1.33 (Strong Buy)

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.

“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. We think that current valuation multiples are attractive given the company’s recovering earnings outlook through FY26.”

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SW is facing some nearer-term headwinds and missed expectations when it reported first-quarter numbers in April. Still, Wall Street remains extremely bullish, with 15 covering analysts unanimous in calling Smurfit a Buy. Their consensus $55.04 price target implies Smurfit’s stock could climb another 24% over the next year or so.

Among the other bulls is Truist Managing Director Michael Roxland, who reiterated his Buy rating after Q1 earnings “given its leading industry position in North America containerboard, allowing it to capitalize on the improving containerboard cycle, which we believe is entering a ‘golden age’ driven by balanced supply & demand, and new and disciplined managements focused on return generation.”

By the way: Smurfit isn’t just growing its top and bottom lines—it’s also raising the bar on its dividend. The company boasts 14 consecutive years of uninterrupted increases to the cash distribution, earning a space among our top dividend-growth stocks, too.

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3. Nvidia

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• Sector: Technology
• Market cap: $5.1 trillion
• Long-term earnings growth estimate: 44%
• Consensus analyst rating: 1.30 (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.

No. 1 with a bullet is the artificial intelligence market, and at least for now, Nvidia is king of that market. But applications for this firm’s hardware also include self-driving cars, cryptocurrency mining, and other in-demand and growth-oriented areas of the 21st century economy.

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“For every $1 spent on an NVDA chip, we estimate an $8 to $10 multiplier rippling across the ecosystem,” says a team of Wedbush analysts led by Dan Ives (Outperform). “Hyperscalers, software, data center buildouts, cybersecurity, and power/energy are set to benefit from the $3 to $4 trillion of AI capex set to take place over the next three years as Nvidia’s chips remain at the epicenter of this 4th Industrial Revolution.”

Nvidia has unsurprisingly been a font of growth, and that’s not expected to end anytime soon. Analysts see revenues improving by 50% annually on average over the next two years, and long-term earnings growth at 44%—an almost shocking clip for a $5 trillion company. 

And NVDA recently gave investors one more reason to love the stock:

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“Results and guidance again met pre-call investor bogeys and the substantial increase in capital return—particularly the dividend—should also please a wide swath of investors based on our recent conversations,” UBS’s Arcuri wrote after Nvidia’s Q1 earnings report. He’s referring to the company’s massive 2,400% increase to the dividend, from 1¢ per share previously to 25¢ as of the June distribution. That still translates into a yield of just about half a percent currently, but long-term dividend investors should be thinking about yield on cost. For example, investors who bought in at the start of 2022, at around $30 per share (after accounting for the company’s 2024 10-for-1 split), now enjoy a 3%-plus yield on their original cost.

As for Wall Street, NVDA has the largest bull camp, by total analysts, in our list of 2026’s best growth stocks: a whopping 58 Buys. That compares to just two Holds and a lonely Sell. As a group, they see Nvidia stock hitting $302.83 within the next year, which would represent a 43% improvement from current levels.

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2. Arista Networks

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• Sector: Technology
• Market cap: $220.2 billion
• Long-term earnings growth estimate: 20%
• Consensus analyst rating: 1.30 (Strong Buy)

Arista Networks (ANET) delivers client-to-cloud networking solutions, primarily for large-scale datacenters, cloud providers, and enterprise environments. That makes it a critical provider of artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. Their offerings include high-speed Ethernet switches, the extensible Operating System (EOS), and network management software like CloudVision.

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And Arista’s positioning in technology’s most important trends has Wall Street almost unanimously bullish on the stock right now: All but one of ANET’s 30 covering analysts rate shares at Buy.

“Arista is benefiting from accelerating [cloud service provider] and enterprise demand and strengthening in cloud-based data center networking in support of large language models, multimodal models, inference, agentic AI, and other AI-driven areas,” says Argus analyst Jim Kelleher, who rates the stock at Buy. “The Cloud Titan category, capturing the largest CSPs and hyperscalers, rose by 30% in 2025, matching the 2024 growth rate. We expect Cloud Titan demand to sustain mid-double-digit growth in 2026. In the AI & Specialty Provider category, which includes neoclouds, along with large cloud companies such as Apple Inc. and Oracle Corp., revenue soared 49% in 2025. We are modeling continued mid-double-digit growth in this category for 2026.”

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After the company issued cautious 2026 guidance earlier in May, William Blair analysts said “we would take advantage of the weakness.”

“Arista remains a leading AI infrastructure provider, counting on strong relationships with the hyperscalers, a growing order backlog, and multiple AI networking tailwinds,” says William Blair, which rates the stock at Outperform.

ANET shares have already advanced by about 30% so far in 2026, and Wall Street’s consensus price target implies another 10% or so of headroom over the next 12 months.

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1. Comfort Systems

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• Sector: Industrials
• Market cap: $63.1 billion
• Long-term earnings growth estimate: 37%
• Consensus analyst rating: 1.22 (Strong Buy)

Comfort Systems USA (FIX) provides mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) contracting services. It offers heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, plumbing, electrical, modular construction, even fire protection. It installs, maintains, repairs, and replaces these systems in both new and existing buildings.

It’s a cyclical business, but one that has been given a shot in the arm by a demand boom in data centers and other advanced manufacturing projects. Revenues quadrupled between 2020 and 2025. Net income has exploded by 580% in that time. And shares have reflected that wild growth, rocketing roughly 2,250% higher over the past five years.

Wall Street thinks the good times can keep rolling, too.

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“Comfort Systems is uniquely positioned to leverage capacity investments in data centers, manufacturing and other critical sectors, with significant customer planning occurring in core Comfort markets served. Modular supplements opportunities in these core regions,” say Oppenheimer analysts, who rate the stock at Outperform. “Recent years have seen remarkable financial performance at the company, although Comfort’s record of top-tier peer financial returns precedes the latest boom in complex facilities demand—a credit to disciplined/effective management.”

FIX doesn’t have a huge analyst following, but eight of the nine that cover the stock call it a Buy, with the lone dissenter a Hold. Meanwhile, an average price target of $2,064 implies an additional 15% of upside over the next year or so.

Also worth noting is that Comfort Systems’ breakneck growth is also reflected in the company’s dividend. The company offers a meager 0.2% headline yield, but that’s largely an effect of its constantly rising share price. But the distribution has expanded from 10.5¢ per share quarterly in 2020 to 80¢ today, for a whopping expansion of 662%. That puts FIX in elite company of being both one of the market’s top dividend-growth stocks and one of the best growth stocks period.

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Should I Buy Growth Stocks or a Growth Exchange-Traded Fund?

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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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We love exchange-traded funds (ETFs) because they can provide one-click access to hundreds, even thousands of stocks, while charging often minuscule fees.

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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