For over a year now, growth stocks have been under a lot of pressure. Since peaking in late 2021, the Nasdaq Composite has fallen around 27%, and many of its components have fared much worse.
For example, shares of Doximity (DOCS 0.97%) and SoFi Technologies (SOFI 3.69%) are down by more than half from their previous peaks. Despite getting hammered mercilessly, these look like excellent stocks to buy now and hold over the long run.
I wouldn't criticize anyone for letting such a disappointing stock market performance cloud their view of the stocks. One look at their underlying business, though, and you'll see why they're screaming buys right now.
1. Doximity
Shares of Doximity got way ahead of themselves when the all-digital bank made its stock market debut a few years ago. Now, the stock is trading at around 66% below the peak it set in 2021.
At recent prices, you can scoop it up for a fairly reasonable valuation of 31 times the company's expectation for adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) during the fiscal year that ends on March 31, 2024.
Doximity's valuation implies a great deal of growth in the years ahead. The high valuation isn't a dealbreaker because this business has a proven ability to grow rapidly during a particularly rough time for its industry.
Doximity runs a social media platform that is exclusive to American medical professionals. Pharmaceutical companies that want to get their messages in front of physicians that can prescribe their medicines are falling over each other to bid on this social media platform's available inventory.
Doximity recently reported revenue that soared 18% year over year during its fiscal third quarter, which ended on Dec. 31, 2022. Its largest peer in the social media space, Meta Platforms, reported revenue that fell around 4% over the same time frame.
Social media users are famously fickle, but Doximity's platform is getting stickier by the minute with the help of productivity tools. For example, over 35% of all U.S. physicians already have enterprise-level access to Doximity's telehealth tools through their employers. Those tools were used by 375,000 unique physicians during the fiscal third quarter.
2. SoFi Technologies
SoFi Technologies is another stock that got far ahead of itself shortly after a stock market debut during the pandemic's lockdown phase. Now, the bank stock is trading around 74% below the peak it reached more than two years ago.
SoFi got started a little over a decade ago by refinancing student loans. Rapid diversification into every facet of consumer banking served it well when President Trump suspended student loan payments and accruing interest nearly three years ago. Total revenue reached $1.6 billion in 2022, which was 178% more than the company reported in 2020.
SoFi isn't reporting net income according to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), but its bottom line is moving in the right direction. In the fourth quarter of 2022, adjusted EBITDA jumped to $70 million, and the company's net loss on a GAAP basis narrowed to $40 million from $111 million a year earlier.
At the end of 2022, SoFi had around 5.2 million members, which was a 51% year-over-year gain. Roughly half of new checking account users also set up direct deposit within 30 days. Unlike most technology-focused banking start-ups, SoFi obtained a national banking charter in early 2022 that allows it to use customer deposits to fund its loans.
SoFi offers members a competitive interest rate on deposits that rose sharply over the past year. Luckily, the interest rates it receives on personal loans and mortgages climbed even higher. A wider net interest margin, thanks to the Federal Reserve's hawkish monetary policy, should push SoFi's bottom line firmly into positive territory by the end of 2023.
At recent prices, you can scoop up shares of SoFi for just 1.2 times its book value. This multiple is below, or near some of America's largest banks, none of which are growing nearly as fast. Buying some shares on the dip could do wonders for your portfolio's performance over the long run.
