Are you looking for raw rapid growth in your investments, even if that means dealing with (more than) a little extra volatility? It's understandable if you are.
If you've got the time and intestinal fortitude to deal with a stock's big ups and downs, a big potential payoff awaits. The trick is simply finding picks with high-growth staying power.
Here are five such large-cap stocks to consider adding to your portfolio and sitting on for the next several years.
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1. Advanced Micro Devices
If you think Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 0.17%) is always behind Nvidia in the graphics card market while at the same time perpetually playing second fiddle to Intel within the computer processor arena, you're right.
But don't let AMD's lack of leadership of its two target markets distract you from the fact that AMD's smaller size can be a growth-driving advantage. Namely, Advanced Micro Devices' hardware is a favorite among hardcore video gamers because it's affordable without sacrificing performance. Even though it's the second-biggest name in its two chief businesses, analysts are modeling top-line growth of 19% this year, which should drive 2021's expected per-share earnings of $2.63 up to $3.34 per share -- a 27% increase.
2. Freeport-McMoRan
Mining any sort of natural resource is a messy business, literally as well as figuratively. Permits and licensing are subject to social and political trends, and ongoing changes in the prices of hydrocarbons and metals can turn a profitable mining venture into an unprofitable one at the drop of a hat.
If you can take a step back and look at the long-term picture, though, you'll likely see that the world's need for copper is never going to go away. If anything, it's only going to continue growing as we embrace more and more technologies like clean/green energy. CRU Group estimates the clean energy sector's need for the electricity-friendly metal will quintuple between 2020 and 2030, for instance.
Enter Freeport-McMoRan (FCX +0.28%). While it's a gold and molybdenum miner, the company is first and foremost a copper miner, selling a little over 1 billion pounds of the stuff during the third quarter of 2021 alone. Yet Freeport and its peers still can't keep up with demand.
Investors that have kept close tabs on Freeport-McMoRan -- and the copper industry as a whole -- will know that extreme price fluctuations have made things tough at times. In multi-year timeframes, though, copper prices have firmly improved, from less than $0.50 per pound in the 1980s and '90s to more than $4 per pound now. Goldman Sachs forecasts its price will be near $7 per pound by 2025, boding very well for the biggest name in the business.
3. Tesla
To say last year was a good one for the electric vehicle (EV) market would be an understatement. Although 2020's pandemic-prompted lull helped statistically, year-over-year growth estimates for the worldwide sales of electric vehicles ranging from 80% to more than 100% (depending on the source) still carried the business to record-breaking unit deliveries of around 7 million, according to Rystad Energy.
Tesla (TSLA +0.78%) carried more of that weight than any other EV maker, delivering 936,172 EVs in 2021, almost tripling its pre-pandemic 2019 output of 367,500 battery-powered vehicles. Look for more of the same sort of growth going forward, too, now that the global EV movement has developed some momentum. Analysts are calling for this year's sales to improve by $21 billion to reach $73 billion, driving a 40% profit increase as a result.
Image source: Getty Images.
Astute investors may realize that Tesla is now losing market share to competitors that have finally started to manufacture rival EVs en masse. But it may not matter. The U.S. Energy Information Administration believes the world's total number of light-duty electric vehicles will swell from only a few million now to more than 670 million by 2050. Even capturing less than its fair share of that growth will be a boon for Tesla.
4. The Trade Desk
The Trade Desk (TTD 7.44%) may not be a household name, but there's a good chance you or someone in your household has been affected by its service.
In simplest terms, The Trade Desk helps advertisers buy room, space, and time to present ads to consumers. The description doesn't quite do the company justice, though. In an arena that's increasingly distracting, The Trade Desk helps companies use digital data to deliver highly targeted advertisements without wasting money on ads that would do little good. Its Solimar software platform even makes it possible for an advertiser to use its own first-party data about a group of prospective customers.
This year's expected 30% sales growth is impressive. But even more impressive is that this pace of revenue growth merely extends a well-established and reliable growth streak that took root in 2016. It's a testament to how the marketing business has become more and more complicated as it's evolving into a technology-based endeavor.
5. Repligen
Finally, add Repligen (RGEN +3.48%) to your list of the market's fastest-growing large-cap stocks.
Repligen is a healthcare company, although it's not one most investors (or even patients) have heard of. It's more of a behind-the-scenes organization, supplying the industry with everything from dialysis solutions to gene therapy manufacturing tech to protein ligand resins used in the manufacturing of monoclonal antibodies. And yes, these resins are being used by drug companies making monoclonal antibodies to treat COVID-19 infections.
That's not necessarily the reason a growth-minded investor might want to step into this admittedly expensive stock, however; the COVID-19 pandemic should eventually come under control. Rather, Repligen's has some strong long-term growth prospects that could make this year's projected 20% sales growth the norm. That's because the coronavirus contagion is likely to have forever changed the pharmaceutical business's landscape. The bioprocessing of biologic drugs has been shown to do what vaccines can't, playing right into the hand Repligen is holding. Mordor Intelligence says the bioprocessing market will grow at an annualized clip of more than 11% through 2026. With minimal competition to deal with, though, Repligen is poised to win more than its fair share of this growth.
