Are you looking for investment growth on a limited budget? You're not alone.
And don't sweat it. Even if you aren't comfortable with the idea of fractional share investing that might let you buy into the more expensive stocks, there are plenty of great growth stocks out there that you can scoop up for less than $100 per share if you are into whole share purchasing. Here are three of your best bets among these low-cost names right now.
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1. Pin profits to your portfolio with Pinterest
Share price: $36.51
To anyone who doesn't use the tech platform, Pinterest (PINS 0.89%) is an odd duck. It's considered a social networking website, but there's seemingly little interaction going on there. Members simply spend their time looking at other members' digital, pictorial "pins" holding ideas, items, and topics they're interested in on a personalized web page.
There's a method to the madness, though. Once one becomes accustomed to the lack of online bickering that can be prevalent on other social media sites, browsing other peoples' pinned-up pages becomes relaxing, and even a little addictive. Pinterest monetizes this traffic by injecting the occasional ad on pages loaded up with all sorts of suggested topics to explore.
The proof of the concept's appeal lies in the numbers. After finally getting serious about revenue growth in 2016, the company has continually tweaked its site and ad-delivery mechanism into an operation that saw a top-line improvement of 48% last year.
Sure, the pandemic helped, though not as much as you might think. This year's revenue is projected to grow another 51% when all is said and done, with another 25% increase being modeled for the coming year. Earnings are growing too.
There's no reason to think the company can't continue growing at this pace either. The rollout of new features like letting users earn money with their boards and the debut of celebrity-inspired "pinning" ultimately beef up user engagement. That in turn beefs up ad revenue.
Perhaps the most exciting argument for owning a stake in Pinterest is how much potential remains untapped. As of the end of the third quarter, the platform still only serves 444 million monthly users, and still only generates an average of about $1.40 per quarter per user. Its U.S. users are considerably more profitable with an average quarterly revenue of $5.55, but that's still only a fraction of the 2.9 billion monthly worldwide users that Meta Platform's Facebook extracts about $10 from every quarter. The per-user figure ramps up to a whopping $52.34 per quarter when limiting the look to just Facebook's U.S. and Canadian users.
2. Switch is the new gold standard in data centers
Share price: $27.74
Switch (SWCH) isn't a household name, and probably never will be. There's a very good chance, however, that you or someone in your household has benefited from the service it provides.
Switch is one of the world's most prolific names in exascale data center ecosystems and edge computing data center designs. In plain English, it helps enterprises build and then optimize the computers and servers needed to keep their employees and customers connected to the company's website and network. Sony, Amgen, and Qualcomm are just some of its more recognizable clients, along with FedEx, which just tapped Switch to help the logistics company build a more modern means of managing the global supply chain.
The data center space is a crowded one to be sure, but Switch is something of a standout. It's the only company in the world that's able to offer class 4 edge data center solutions, which essentially means its service always works, and always works as well as expected. This high-performance reliability is particularly important where edge computing is concerned, as it often involves the collection and aggregation of millions of pieces of digital data all being fed into a central network at the same time. It's not a stretch to say that high-performance exascale computing will be the data center industry's focal point for the foreseeable future.
An investor doesn't have to understand the ins and outs of exascale data centers, however, to appreciate how this year's projected sales growth of 16% is expected to be essentially repeated again next year, pumping up profits accordingly.
3. Chewy is in the right place at the right time
Share price: $54.76
Finally, add Chewy (CHWY -0.64%) to your list of growth stocks worth stepping into right now at less than $100 per share.
Unlike Switch, Chewy is a household name ... at least it should be if you have pets. The company operates an online pet supply store that sells everything from food to toys to animal pharmacy services. The site has plugged into the pet mania that got going in earnest several years ago, but flourished last year when millions of people were stuck at home due to pandemic-prompted lockdowns. The company's top line improved to the tune of 47% last year, dragging the company to at least within sight of profitability.
Consumers' love for their fur babies isn't apt to fade anytime soon, either. As Morgan Stanley analysts pointed out earlier this year, all the pet purchases made last year set the stage for ongoing pet supply and pet food purchases for the next several years. The analysts also point out that two-thirds of U.S. residents between the age of 18 and 34 plan on getting a pet (or another pet) within the coming five years, which will boost total pet ownership by 14%. All told, last year's record-breaking $100 billion spent on pets in the United States alone could swell to $275 billion per year by 2030, if those analysts are reading the pet landscape right.
This of course is a bullish tailwind for Chewy, but so is the fact that this year is expected to be the last year the company posts a full-year loss. The analyst community predicts Chewy will swing to a profit of $0.01 per share next fiscal year on the heels of 19% sales growth, after which profit margins should really start to widen thanks to much greater scale.
