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 March 26, 2026.
Featured Financial Products
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 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.
Do you want to get serious about saving and planning for retirement? Sign up for Retire With Riley, Young and the Invested’s free retirement planning newsletter.
7. Axon Enterprise
- Sector: Industrials
- Market cap: $31.6 billion
- Long-term earnings growth estimate: 29%
- Consensus analyst rating: 1.60 (Buy)
Axon Enterprise (AXON) is a public safety technology provider that’s best known for the Taser brand of electroshock weapons. But it’s much more than Taser—its product lines also include body cameras, in-car cameras, drones and counter-drone technologies, accessories, even VR training hardware. It also offers a plethora of services, such as digital evidence management, records management, operations software, and more.
Related: 8 Best High-Yield Dividend ETFs for Income-Hungry Investors
For years, Axon has been a rampant operational growth story with a stock price to match, but shares found a new gear after the 2024 elections in anticipation of a ramp-up in spending. However, shares hit a wall starting in summer 2025, and those losses began to accelerate alongside a number of software-as-a-service names amid fears that artificial intelligence (AI) was coming to eat everyone’s lunch.
But the company’s most recent earnings suggest that in some cases, including Axon’s, that AI concerns might not only be overdone … but that AI is actually working for some of these companies.
Related: 8 Best-in-Class Bond Funds to Buy
“Axon delivered another impressive quarter with its strongest ever first-quarter results highlighted by 35% ARR growth and 44% bookings growth. Demand for AI solutions continues to be the primary driver, with AI bookings growth of 140% and the AI Era Plan growing 700%,” say William Blair analysts, who rate the stock at Outperform (equivalent of Buy). “With its AI products now seeing strong adoption from customers and driving acceleration in revenue, we are optimistic that investors will view Axon as a beneficiary of the adoption of AI. We believe investors should take advantage of weakness in the shares as we believe Axon will likely see sustained demand for its products.”
They’re not alone. While AXON is in the midst of a near-halving of its shares, it enjoys 18 Buy calls versus two Holds and nary a Sell. Moreover, the pros see the company delivering nearly 30% annual profit growth, on average, across the next three to five years.
Related: The 10 Best Vanguard Index Funds You Can Buy
6. Micron
- Sector: Technology
- Market cap: $1.0 trillion
- Long-term earnings growth estimate: 143%
- Consensus analyst rating: 1.48 (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.
“In the age of AI, no company other than Nvidia has blown away consensus expectations as measurably as Micron did with 2Q26 results and 3Q26 guidance,” 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.”
Related: 8 Best Stock Picking Services, Subscriptions, & Sites
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.
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 39 Buy calls versus just four Holds and one Sell. Meanwhile, their expectations for the bottom line are sky-high, with the consensus looking for more than 140% annual earnings expansion over the next five years.
Related: 7 Best Stock Advisor Websites & Services to Seize Alpha
5. Neurocrine Biosciences
- Sector: Healthcare
- Market cap: $15.7 billion
- Long-term earnings growth estimate: 43%
- 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.
Related: 15 Dividend Kings for Royally Resilient Income
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.
“NBIX reported [first-quarter] total revenue of $815 million, which comfortably beat versus the consensus $764 million,” say Wedbush analysts Laura Chico and Thomas Yip (Outperform). “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.”
Related: The 7 Best REITs You Can Buy Right Now
“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 more than 40% annually on average over the next three to five years.
The current consensus price target of $192 per share implies that NBIX has another 20%-plus in upside over the next 12 months.
Make Young and the Invested your preferred news source on Google
Simply go to your preferences page and select the ✓ box for Young and the Invested. Once you’ve made this update, you’ll see Young and the Invested show up more often in Google’s “Top Stories” feed, as well as in a dedicated “From Your Sources” section on Google’s search results page.
Featured Financial Products
4. Smurfit Westrock
- Sector: Consumer discretionary
- Market cap: $20.5 billion
- Long-term earnings growth estimate: 33%
- 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.
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.
Related: 11 Best Vanguard Funds for the Everyday Investor
“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.”
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. They also expect Smurfit to grow its bottom line at a healthy clip of 33% annually over the next three to five years.
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.
Make sure you sign up for The Weekend Tea, Young and the Invested’s free weekly newsletter that over 10k monthly readers use to level up their money know-how.
3. Arista Networks
- Sector: Technology
- Market cap: $200.4 billion
- Long-term earnings growth estimate: 17%
- Consensus analyst rating: 1.28 (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.
Related: Best Fidelity Retirement Funds for a 401(k) Plan
And Arista’s positioning in technology’s most important trends has Wall Street unanimously bullish on the stock right now: All of ANET’s 29 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.”
Related: Motley Fool Stock Advisor Review: Steady Eddies
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 20% so far in 2026, and Wall Street’s consensus price target implies another 20% or so of headroom over the next 12 months.
Like Young and the Invested’s Content? Be sure to follow us.
2. Nvidia
- Sector: Technology
- Market cap: $5.2 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.
Related: Best Vanguard Retirement Funds for a 401(k) Plan
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.
“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.
Related: The 10 Best ETFs for Beginners
And NVDA recently gave investors one more reason to love the stock:
“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.
Related: 13 Best Stock Screeners + Stock Scanners
1. Take-Two Interactive Software
- Sector: Communication services
- Market cap: $41.0 billion
- Long-term earnings growth estimate: 40%
- Consensus analyst rating: 1.19 (Strong Buy)
Take-Two Interactive Software (TTWO), tops on our list of tech stocks to buy right now, 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, the Civilization and Red Dead Redemption series, a host of mobile games (including Words With Friends and FarmVille), and most notably, the Grand Theft Auto series.
A recent Jefferies analyst note cuts right to the heart of the most important factor in TTWO shares right now: “The GTA hype cycle has officially begun.”
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, no Holds, and one Sell as of this writing—powered by expectations for 40% average annual long-term earnings growth.
Related: 9 Best Schwab ETFs to Buy [Build Your Core for Cheap]
“TTWO possesses some of the highest-quality content among U.S. publishers,” says Jefferies analyst James Heaney, who rates the stock at Buy. “The last several years have seen investment in developers, this year sees investment in sales and marketing—all leading to an unprecedented wave of content starting with GTA VI in FY27, with further pipeline titles beyond. Valuation is reasonable, and as the pipeline becomes known, we expect rerating in estimates.”
As for the AI worries that rattled much of the software space? BofA Global Research, for one, isn’t concerned.
“TTWO now offers a particularly attractive buying opportunity after the recent drawdown on concerns that Google’s ‘Genie 3’ model undermines AAA publishers,” say BofA analysts Omar Dessouky and Arthur Chu (Buy). “We view the concerns as misplaced: (1) Management clarified that Genie ‘is not a game engine’ and today looks closer to a procedurally generated interactive video tool than a replacement for mission design, physics, networking or live-ops; it cannot supplant end‑to‑end game production. (2) About half of TTWO’s earnings are gated by proprietary IP and licenses (e.g., NBA/NBPA, player likeness rights), and the company’s hallmark open‑world titles deliver ~100 hours of authored gameplay and stable multiplayer environments at scale.”
Featured Financial Products
Related: The 7 Best Gold ETFs You Can Buy
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.
Related: 7 Best Closed-End Funds (CEFs) Paying Us Up to 15.2%
Want to talk more about your financial goals or concerns? Our services include comprehensive financial planning, investment management, estate planning, taxes, and more! Schedule a call with Riley to discuss what you need, and what we can do for you.
Related: The 10 Best Dividend ETFs You Can Buy
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.
Related: 7 Best Vanguard Dividend Funds for 2026
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.
Please Heart ❤️, Follow and Subscribe
Did you find this article helpful?
1. Click the Heart Button.
2. Follow WealthUpdate —-> https://flipboard.com/@WealthUpdate
3. Subscribe to Retire With Riley, our free weekly retirement planning newsletter.
