If you're like most investors, this has been a lousy year for the stocks in your portfolio. Soaring interest rates and fear of a recession that those higher rates could lead to already pushed the benchmark S&P 500 index down 17.5% from its peak near the beginning of 2022.
The sinking market indexes need to recover soon, or 2022 will go down in the books as the stock market's worst year since the global financial crisis began in 2008.
Image source: Getty Images.
But if you can stop fretting about how far stocks have fallen this year, you would see that continuing to buy stocks when the market is down can lead to enormous gains over time. The same S&P 500 index that is getting hammered right now also soared a stunning 428% from the beginning of 2009 through the end of 2021.
Nobody knows if we're at the bottom of the current bear market, but we can be confident that a relatively long recovery period will follow. When it does, these two beaten-down growth stocks will more than likely come roaring back.
1. Inari Medical
Venous blood clots aren't the sort of thing that gets most investors' hearts pumping, but they should. Inari Medical (NARI 3.18%) markets proprietary clot removal devices that are leaping off the shelves, and its operation has a lot of room to grow. Despite some excellent prospects, shares of this healthcare stock have fallen around 42.6% from their peak last year.
Traditionally, patients who get admitted to a hospital with venous blood clots in their lungs or peripheral veins are treated with powerful blood thinners. Blood thinners themselves aren't that expensive, but monitoring patients for the dangerous bleeding events they can cause is very costly.
Inari's clot-removal devices aren't just faster than traditional blood thinners -- they also lead to better outcomes. In a trial with 500 patients, 99% were treated in a single session, and they were significantly less likely to develop disabling complications.
Inari Medical can boast a strong 88.5% gross margin on sales of its devices, but heavy investment in a growing sales force caused the company to report a net loss in the third quarter. That said, as the only company marketing FDA-approved clot removal devices for large blood vessels, the road ahead of Inari Medical is a relatively smooth one. The minor losses it's posting today could turn into a strong, growing profit in 2023.
2. Doximity
Shares of Doximity (DOCS -2.79%) exploded higher following the company's market debut in 2021. Unfortunately, the stock has fallen a scary 68.5% from its peak last year.
Doximity operates a specialized social media platform for U.S. physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants. Around 80% of all U.S. physicians are on Doximity, which makes its social media feed a gold mine for advertising.
Doximity also offers productivity tools that health system administrators are eager to pay for. For example, 370,000 clinicians used its telehealth tools over 200,000 times per day, on average, during the third quarter.
The company's shares are currently trading at around 34 times this year's estimate for adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA). This is a high multiple, but Doximity is growing fast enough to warrant such a high valuation. Third-quarter sales soared 29% year over year.
With a large network of U.S. physicians already enamored with its platform and productivity tools, the road ahead of this business looks like a fairly smooth one. Buying the stock now while it's under pressure and holding through the next recovery period could easily lead to market-beating gains for your portfolio.
